


Surrender

by arrowinthesky (restfulsky5)



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alien Culture, Alternate Universe - Age Reversal, Angst, Episode: s01e01 Where No Man Has Gone Before, Episode: s02e10 Mirror Mirror, Forced Mind Meld, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Gaslighting, Hurt Jim, Hurt McCoy, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mirror Universe, Mutual Pining, Not Friends to, Pining, Plot Twists, Psychological Torture, Romance, Star Trek References, Torture, Unreliable Narrator, Unresolved Sexual Tension, medical emergencies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-26
Updated: 2017-11-10
Packaged: 2018-10-11 01:55:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 47,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10452372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/restfulsky5/pseuds/arrowinthesky
Summary: Five times McCoy saves Jim's life without waiting for the captain's permission - and one time he does.(Inspired by Aoida_blue's "Young, Bright and...No Jim No.")***ANNOUNCEMENT 1/18/18***I’m working on the next chapter, which will be this fic’s version of Into Darkness. Stay tuned!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Young, Bright and No Jim No](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9295367) by [Aoida_blue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aoida_blue/pseuds/Aoida_blue). 



> New story! Aoida_blue's wonderful fic, Young, Bright and...No Jim No, was so inspiring, I had to write something to continue its unique premise: McCoy, as the new, young doctor on the Enterprise, and Jim as the older, more experienced captain. And Aoida_blue was so kind to allow me to do so. :)
> 
> McCoy is of legal age in this fic as I explore this shift in dynamics between them. I won’t lie—it's a little challenging to write them this way, since so much of what I imagine of Jim/Bones depends on their ages in the AOS verse. However, it has become an intriguing challenge, too. :D My goal is to keep the essence of Jim/Bones, even with the age reversal. (Please note that at this point in the story, there is a little more than the canon difference of six-years between them.)
> 
> For those who are wondering, I finished this first part a couple of weeks ago - it has not interfered with my promise to And If I Stand readers to focus on that fic for awhile. Thank you, Diamondblue4 and Junker5, for editing and giving wonderful, sound advice, too. :)
> 
> This one will be short, just six chapters, and will be placed in my rotation of fics. I tried holding this fic back until I finished it. Obviously, I have no self-control. :D I blame my muse, who refuses to leave me alone until I post. 
> 
> I strongly recommend reading Aoida_blue’s fic first, it’s SOOO good, although it’s not completely necessary in order to follow this one. Hope you enjoy the read!

 

***

I

***

 

 

“I think you should offer him my position.”

 

The voice, eerily confident yet foreboding at the same time, startles him. Jim spins around on his heel to see who’d come up so quietly behind him, spilling hot coffee on the front of his gold shirt in the process.

 

“Not again,” he groans as the liquid drips from his hand.

 

He’d just changed his shirt for the second time today. He’d dropped his breakfast on it first thing this morning, after picking up the unexpectedly hot plate with his bare hand, proving to those in the mess hall that he is, indeed, human and capable of being clumsy at times.

 

He’d ruined his shirt irrevocably a second time, after a diplomatic meeting went wrong between two alien groups fairly new to the Federation. One little bastard, an Exogorian about two feet tall, who resembled a hunchbacked bear-like creature, had jumped on his shoulder. He’d dug into his skin with sharp claws and demanded the Federation take their side, once and for all, before tearing Jim’s shirt into shreds.

 

Luckily, Scotty had beamed Jim back to the Enterprise before the Exogorian had time to go for his pants.

 

He shakes his wet hand in disgust, incidentally splattering more coffee on himself.

 

“Sorry, Captain,” his CMO, Dr. Philip Boyce apologizes, stepping up to him and looking at his cup of coffee. “Here, let me take that.”

 

He raises a brow and hands him his mug. “Give _who_ your position?”

 

As if he doesn’t know.

 

“Dr. McCoy, of course. He’s smart enough, has both the experience and the instincts…” Boyce looks at him expectantly. “You already know I want to take a position planet-side as soon as I can. I have grandchildren I’ve never seen.”

 

He frowns at his current, able-bodied CMO, absently wiping at the mess he’d made and trying to think of a way to convince him to stay on his ship, at least for the remaining year of their mission. Another year, and McCoy would be that much older. Then maybe he won't feel as guilty for constantly dreaming of his capable hands. His young capable hands. But...McCoy? Now? “Oh, no. Just...no.”

 

“He doesn’t think you trust him enough to be on your ship.”

 

“Well.” Jim mentally scratches his head, unsure how to answer that.

 

So far, only Spock knows of his predicament. He has to make sure it stays that way.

 

“Captain?”

 

“Did _he_ tell you that?”

 

Boyce shakes his head. “Doesn’t have to. I find him fairly easy to read, but I do have a son about his age.”

 

Freaking fabulous. Comparing him to his son.

 

“Your son, he's what, a sophomore at the university this year?” he asks casually.

 

Anything to bring him down to Earth.

 

Boyce smiles, a father’s pride filling his eyes. “That he is.” He quirks a brow. “About McCoy.”

 

“Hmm,” Jim hums, feeling more and more disgusting in his wet and stained shirt. He can say with complete confidence that _McCoy_ never looks disgusting in _his_ shirts. Very unfairly, he might add. How could he, with those inhumanly broad shoulders and an equally broad chest and, God, those arm muscles, all of which are anchored by slim hips and a tempting ass? “Can’t say that I really think he’s cut out for this.”

 

“And Chekov was?”

 

He shrugs. He can ignore his hypocrisy, if Boyce can. “That was different.” He doesn’t bother to explain his vague response, neither does he bother to check in the corridor to see if anyone is watching. He removes his shirt with smooth movements, then bunches it in his hand.

 

“Not really. Try to put yourself in his shoes, Jim,” Boyce says, handing him his coffee mug. “You never acknowledge him except for a nod in the corridor or mess hall. You’re never on the same landing party, either. You’re avoiding him, and he knows it.” He pauses. “I’ve noticed it.”

 

Jim gulps what's left of his coffee. The taste is bitter, the hot liquid burning his throat as he tries to quell his anxiety as much as he can. “It’s not like he tries to be friendly, either.”

 

Despite Uhura’s efforts, McCoy has not attended a single social activity. He does use the gym, however, usually arriving towards the end of Jim’s workout, when he feels like he’s going to die, of course. He wants to remind Boyce that he sees him there every single day. He doesn’t, though. That’s one red flag he doesn’t want to hold up for everyone to see. He keeps track of the doctor, in a non-stalkerish sort of way, of course, but that’s no one’s business but his own. He is the captain, after all, and believes he should know the habits of his crewmen.

 

It's just some habits are more noticeable than others.

 

“Maybe if you invite him to have a meal with you?” Boyce presses. “There’s nothing like a personal invitation from the captain.”

 

“Mentioned it the first day he was here,” Jim counters.

 

“Three months ago,” Boyce says disapprovingly. “I’m not sure he’s gotten to know anyone well except for perhaps Nurse Chapel.”

 

A flicker of jealousy comes out of nowhere, reminding him that his infatuation with McCoy grows stronger every day. “She’s a little old for him, don't ya think?”

 

“I don't think he lives in any world other than the medical one he's immersed himself in, so it doesn’t really matter.”

 

“Still,” he mutters. “She’s old.”

 

Boyce looks at him with an expression he can’t quite decipher. “Are you headed back to your quarters, Captain?” he asks quietly.

 

“No,” Jim says. He has a stack of paperwork on his desk that he didn’t get to yesterday. “Why?”

 

Boyce inclines his head, his gaze lowering to his chest. “Not sure I’d recommend going to the bridge looking like that.”

 

He looks down at his chest. His naked chest. He’s not eating wisely these days, soothing his loneliness with favorite foods, but at least he does look fit. Fit enough to attract attention like he used to during his bar-hopping days. “Right.”

 

He recalls the pain creeping into his temple before Boyce showed up, just thinking of the tense relations between the Exogorians and the Qua’onites that HQ is depending upon him and his crew to smooth over. Whoever had called this a simple diplomatic mission deserves to have his head examined. Delicate is more like it. If Uhura hadn’t translated as tactfully as she had, he’s certain a war would’ve started already between them.

 

“I’ll head to medical, first,” he says. “I can grab a replacement shirt there.”

 

Boyce’s eyes narrow. “You need something more than that?”

 

He sure does. A good look at a dark-haired doctor with an adorable scowl, the hair that doesn’t stay in place, and the eyes that, though usually sharp, sometimes soften when no one (except for Jim, of course) is looking. With any luck, the doctor’s back will be turned and he can watch—

 

“The area I treated bothering you?” Boyce asks.

 

Jim jolts back to attention. Boyce is no doubt thinking of the horrendous mess his shoulder had been in earlier, an injury the doctor had deftly treated with a dermal regenerator. It looks good as new, now. Which is good, since he’s roaming the halls half-naked. If he’s shirtless, it might as well be shirtless and looking attractive just in case he runs into McCoy.

 

He clutches his ruined shirt.

 

“No, just a headache,” he explains, but also feeling a tad bit on the warm side, even without his shirt. He sweeps an arm across his forehead.

 

It isn’t a complete lie. He’d _had_ a headache and doesn’t want another one.

 

Boyce does not look appeased. “I’d treat you, myself, but I’m joining the away team in case there are any more...incidents.” He hesitates. “I can ask M’Benga, or McCoy, to take my place.”

 

“No, _I’ll_ see McCoy,” Jim hears himself saying.

 

“Well, maybe that would bridge the gap,” Boyce says, a thoughtful look on his face. “You’d really like him, Jim, if you don’t mind me saying so, once you get to know him. He can be somewhat gruff, with that crusty exterior of his, but the man has more medical knowledge and skill than surgeons twice his age.”

 

“Be careful,” Jim says, diverting the conversation away from the topic of the doctor’s age.

 

His records, which he’d checked at least a dozen times since he came aboard his ship, say he’s _just_ turned twenty. Twenty.

 

And he—Jim—is twenty-eight. Twenty-eight going on eighty, ever since he started worrying about the young lives on his ship. In fact, in a few months he’ll be twenty-nine.

 

Good God, he’s thinking of robbing the cradle.

 

He’d be dismissed or discharged—or hung by his genitals. Maybe all three. McCoy isn’t even the legal drinking age.

 

“Always,” Boyce says. “When you see McCoy, Jim, it might be a good idea to allow him access to your medical files. So he can familiarize himself with your history...and other things that could be of importance.”

 

His heart drops. No way in hell would he let a kid doctor see his record. It had been hard enough to hand them over to Boyce. He had felt like someone had forced his mouth open with a steely vise and yanked out all of his teeth. He’s allowed Boyce into the very small circle of people who know of his nasty past, but that doesn’t mean he’s willing to do it again. If anything, he prefers this circle of people to shrink.

 

Not only would it be difficult to give McCoy permission to see his medical files, it would be too weird. He’d been just seven years younger than McCoy when he’d been sent to that God-forsaken planet. Then, when he was twenty, he’d been a pain the _ass_. Not some smart and responsible young doctor.

 

He clears his throat. “I’ll join you after I take care of the paperwork Admiral Barnett is hounding me after.”

 

Boyce squeezes his shoulder. “I’m serious about McCoy, Jim. You’d have no better man than him. I’d trust him with my life in a heartbeat.”

 

“I’ll take that into consideration,” he says.

 

He heads towards medical, wondering what the hell he’s gotten himself into. The very idea of trusting McCoy with his life…

 

...vexes him.

 

 

oOo

 

 

Leonard lifts a brow as Christine steals into his office. “How did you figure out my code?”

 

“You left the door open.”

 

He frowns. “Oh.”

 

Usually he isn’t so scatter-brained. Then again, Boyce had just commed him that the captain is headed for the medbay.

 

To see _him_.

 

Jesus, if that isn’t a freaking miracle. The captain does his best to steer clear of him at all times, yet is coming to see him to be treated for a simple headache?

 

Something doesn’t seem right to him about the situation, and he thinks he’s starting to figure it out. Like, really out.

 

Though he looks quite young, he wasn’t born yesterday. He’s also a doctor. He sees things at first glance that other people don’t even notice. A sweaty forehead. A pulsing vein. Nervous gesturing. Dilating eyes. A swift one-eighty turn to hide a bulge in the pants. The latter he’s mostly imagined to explain why Kirk constantly leaves just as he shows up. He considers that part of the captain’s anatomy a little too much, which proves he might have an unprofessional and small crush on Kirk in return.

 

Yet when he puts the pieces together, they don’t add up.

 

Why the hell would Starfleet’s flagship captain ever be interested in _him_?

 

He’s a grumpy ass and likes it that way. He hates the idea of loving again because the first time had burned him, occurring shortly after his father had died, which had disillusioned him towards both love and life. He hates space, yet the opportunity to be on the Enterprise under a great captain and a capable CMO mentor had been too good an opportunity to resist. He also hates being sociable and tosses scowls to anyone who dares to approach him about ‘going out.’ Like they can ‘go out’ somewhere on a damn tin can. Fat chance.

 

Then there is the fact that the captain is just that. The _captain_. Fraternizing with his crew is not allowed.

 

So why the hell does James T. Kirk even _like_ him? What has him so interested?

 

“The girls and I are going to hit the game room tonight,” Christine says, leaning casually against his desk in sickbay.

 

“The game room. As in the tiny room that holds twelve people like sardines?” he asks dryly.

 

“We’d love for you to join us,” Christine continues, undeterred.

 

He turns his head towards the wall, contemplating an excuse to use this time. “You and five other girls?” He rolls his eyes since there is no way she can see them. “Yeah. Sounds fun to me, the only male,” he says in monotone.

 

“Surely you aren’t sexist, Dr. McCoy,” Christine says, a hint of amusement in her voice.

 

“I’m gay,” he says.

 

And he is, has had two boyfriends, nearly marrying the last one, who he’d loved until the man left him for someone else. No one on this ship is aware of that loss, and he’d rather leave that part of his life behind. He doesn’t want to be reminded of it and drink his problems away again, nursing a broken heart.

 

He stands, lifts his chin, and stares at her. “End of story.”

 

She huffs. “Dr. McCoy, trust me. That doesn’t have any bearing on whether you will have a good time with us.”

 

He opens his mouth to disagree, when another nurse steps in. He’s relieved how timely his escape is, until she speaks.

 

“Dr. McCoy, it’s Captain Kirk,” she says quickly. “He’s collapsed.”

 

He snaps to attention, grabbing his tricorder off his desk and slipping past Christine. Boyce is off the ship and M’Benga is in surgery, which leaves Kirk’s well-being up to him. “Where is he?” he asks.

 

“Just outside sickbay,” she says, running towards the doors.

 

He races after her, not sure what to expect. A headache? Or another illness he'd picked up on his most recent mission? He does not stop until he’s reached Kirk, a hundred feet away from the medbay doors. The captain is on his back, his face drenched with sweat and his body shaking from head to toe, a crumpled shirt on the ground by his hand. There are dark splotches on the shirt and he quickly scans it, just in case it has something to do with Kirk’s collapse.

 

The reading says...coffee?

 

He’d laugh if the situation didn’t look so dire. The captain does have a tendency to ruin shirts.

 

Apparently he'd done a number on this one, too, from the looks of it.

 

“Captain, it’s McCoy,” he says to alert him of his presence.

 

Kirk’s face is twisted with confusion, and most likely pain, yet somehow he has found the strength and wherewithal to stare up at him. “Head...ache. ‘S’all.”

 

“Looks like it’s a little more than that, Captain,” he admonishes gently, kneeling beside him.

 

Kirk’s gaze is loose and unfocused. “Head...ache,” he slurs again, sounding far from the intimidating captain he’s used to hearing or seeing everyday on the Enterprise.

 

He’s heard rumors of past injuries the captain has incurred, that it’s expected the leap-without-looking captain will get hurt on an away mission, but has seen very few actual injuries since his arrival on the ship three months ago. And this is the worst. Whatever it is that has incapacitated Kirk is strong. He vows to do whatever he can to fix it before Boyce sets foot back on the Enterprise.

 

“I know.” He nods, staring into his eyes, though Kirk seems to have lost all awareness of where he is. His stomach twists at the lack of clarity in those familiar blue eyes, the eyes that watch him constantly on the ship, and the weakened voice coming from the usually strong and energetic man. “I’ll take care of it as soon as I can and we figure out what caused you to collapse.”

 

He takes a good look at the inflamed shoulder that he saw Boyce treat earlier in the day. Kirk had left whole and hardy. It now appears too painful to touch, which means he'll have to investigate it further. He begins his scan, taken aback by the realization that this marks the first time he’s even touched this man or treated him.

 

He wonders if Kirk has been extra cautious, avoiding anything that would bring him down to medical. Considering that he avoids him everywhere else, except for the gym, he won’t be surprised if that’s the case.

 

He berates himself for not thinking like a doctor and does all he can to separate his personal longing from his duty. He has to prove himself to Kirk, once and for all. Maybe this is his chance.

 

“I need a stretcher,” he tells the nurse. “Once he's on the biobed, I can give him something for pain. Prepare 10 mg of morphine and have it on standby.”

 

Kirk groans. “‘Lergies,” he says, his eyes fluttering shut.

 

He looks at the nurse. “Are you familiar with his medical history? Is he allergic to morphine?”

 

“He does have...several allergies, Dr. McCoy…”

 

“Several is too broad, Nurse…?”

 

“Annie.”

 

“Annie.” He frowns. She usually works the gamma shift, so he’s never gotten to know her well. His first impression is that she’s a little timid, not necessarily the best thing on a starship.

 

“....but I don’t think morphine is one of them.”

 

That’s just great. That information is no doubt in a restricted file that he does not have access to. But today is not normal; Boyce is on the away team and, as per regulation, has left him the access codes for use in an emergency.

 

“He’s running a fever,” he says, his worry rising as the read-out continues. “He’s lost muscle control, but it should be fine to move him.”

 

“We were afraid to until we knew for sure,” she explains hastily.

 

“His condition is deteriorating,” he clips. “I need to treat him in sickbay.”

 

“Of course, Dr. McCoy.” She turns to leave.

 

He firms his jaw as data shows up on the screen. Kirk has an unknown substance in his blood, the scanner identifying it closely with the toxin called _Anathyte_.

 

He recognizes it immediately, thanks to the hours he’d spent learning whatever he could about every disease extant in the deepest parts of space, going as far as to seek out patients who continue to suffer from them despite years of treatment. He’s also written dozens of journal articles on the rarest toxins, simply because he’d had nothing else to do but fill his hours with nothing but medicine. Medicine that would take him far away from Earth.

 

Anathyte is a rare, nearly untraceable venom that certain alien species use as a natural defense mechanism during mating, to defend them and their partner if another threatens their territory. Or, as is more common, to kill their mate before their mate kills them.

 

Why it would be in Kirk’s system is anyone’s guess. Unless...

 

“Wait,” he calls out to the nurse, stopping her just at the door. “I need you to comm Dr. Boyce right away and ask him to find out everything he can about the Exogorian who attacked Kirk.” He stops, the image of Kirk with great, bloody stripes on his shoulder flashing before him. He’s never heard of an Exogorian carrying this toxin, but Starfleet couldn't know everything about alien species. “Ask him if he is in his mating season and if there is an incubation period to their natural toxin.”

 

“Yes, sir,” she says, and disappears into the medbay.

 

Kirk makes a distressed, raspy sound that strangely twists his stomach.

 

He glances back down at him.

 

Kirk is staring at him through narrow slits. “Bad?” he asks hoarsely.

 

He leans forward to straighten Kirk’s arm, which had found its way under him, bent awkwardly. “Not bad enough to kill you, sir,” he says.

 

 _Yet_.

 

“Sir,” Kirk scoffs weakly, his voice shaking as much as his body.

 

For a split second their eyes meet. “Yes. Sir,” he emphasizes firmly, bracing himself against saying anything more personal, like he has the right to do that, anyway.

 

“C-cold,” Kirk mumbles, his gaze drifting again, his eyes now glassy. “H-hot.”

 

“I know ya are.” He grasps Kirk’s arm and gives it gentle squeeze. “Just hang on. It'll be okay,” he says, hoping the captain is still lucid enough to understand.

 

Something flickers in Kirk’s eyes, and he nods, then suddenly stops, a twisted look of pain crossing his face. “I…” he wheezes. “Wha’s…”

 

Kirk doesn't finish. His eyes roll to the back of his head, his body going frighteningly limp.

 

He reaches out just in time. Kirk’s head falls to the side, but he manages to catch it before it hits the floor. He opens Kirk’s eyelids, checking them, but they only lift partway. A strange milky sheen covers them, a material resembling a membrane of some type. He will need to remove it before it hardens. That means surgery.

 

Dammit. The toxin is already in its next stage.

 

“Over here,” someone says behind him.

 

He feels as if he's watching everything in slow motion.

 

Two male nurses step out into the corridor with the stretcher, and crouch beside the ill captain, murmuring softly to him. Kirk jerks away from their touch though he's unconscious, with his eyes practically sealed shut.

 

He has always wanted to be a doctor. He’s never even considered doing else. When his personal life went belly-up, he told himself a full and rewarding career was all he needed. And it had been...until now.

 

Kirk is transferred to the stretcher. The captain doesn't make a sound, now quiet and still.

 

He’s relieved, in a way. He'd heard something in Kirk’s voice that bothered him, just like with his eyes.

 

And it has nothing to do with the toxin.

 

In record time they place Kirk on a bio bed. McCoy pulls the privacy curtain as a nurse begins to remove the rest of the captain’s clothing. Calling up Kirk’s chart, he enters the requested override code, sighing in relief when it works. Scanning the area containing noted allergies, he quickly absorbs the information. The rest can wait until after his examination is finished.

 

“Fold the blanket back, so it rests above his waist,” he says, frowning as he dons a pair of gloves. “I need to check his lower body for rashes. He's not allergic to morphine, fortunately. Give him 10 mgs, intravenously, and then start a morphine drip. I don’t want him waking up to excruciating pain.”

 

“Yes, Doctor.”

 

The sheet in place, he looks over the rest of Kirk’s body carefully, inspecting every inch for other hot and inflamed areas with gentle hands, lest he inflict more harm. There are several—one on the bottom of his left foot, another on his right hip and creeping towards his groin, another on the back of his right hand, and, after they adjust the sheet, a fourth blossoming in the middle of his chest.

 

Those are all the signs he needs. “It’s spreading quickly,” he says to Chapel, who covers Kirk. “It always does.”

 

“You know what this is?”

 

“Yes,” he says grimly. “I do. Many patients with rashes on the extremities lose their hands and feet. I'll need one of you to rub his feet to help improve his blood circulation.”

 

“That's some dumb luck, Captain,” Christine whispers to the unconscious form in the bed.

 

Annie returns, breathless. “Boyce says you’re right. It is a toxin he has never heard of and, according to the information the Exogorians gave him, acts swiftly. He says the Exogorian denied the possibility at first but Spock demanded their cooperation or the Federation would no longer listen to their concerns and leave, forcing them to handle this dispute on their own.” She swallows. “They admitted it was…”

 

“Well, what?” McCoy asks impatiently.

 

She winces. “On purpose.”

 

Christine stills. “This was an assassination attempt? Why?”

 

His skin grows cold. “We have no time to stand around and ask ourselves why. That's not our job,” he barks, taking command of the situation. “We have to flush his system of the toxin. Chapel, start another IV. I need a crash cart, on the double.”

 

Chapel’s professional mask slips momentarily. “You don't mean?”

 

He automatically reaches for and then clutches Kirk’s hand, if only to calm his own nerves, and places it under the sheet so his hand will be warm. Touching Kirk is oddly comforting in light of the fact that he's the only one on this ship who knows how to even treat Kirk. But it's also taboo.

 

He’d never want to get in the way of Kirk’s successful career.

 

All the more reason to stay away from him.

 

“His heart will likely stop in two minutes,” he explains. No matter what the hell he does to try to stop it from happening. “We need to be ready.”

 

The captain won't be dying on his watch.

 

 

oOo

 

 

Jim longs to slip back into the pleasant dream he’d just had, but the steady and familiar sound of machines urges him to return to the real world.

 

He doesn’t bother opening his eyes. He knows where he is without looking around him. Besides, he isn’t sure he can open his eyes. They feel...sticky.

 

He raises an arm, fighting the heaviness he feels in his limbs, and the weight he feels in his chest. He has a difficult time finding his own damn eyes, but when he does, he touches them in surprise.

 

They’re swathed in bandages, and his hand sports a port, with an intravenous line.

 

Last thing he remembers is heading towards sickbay with a headache. Why would he be practically tied to his bed?

 

That hasn’t happened...since before that young kid waltzed into his life.

 

“Good. You’re awake.”

 

He’d know that voice anywhere. “McCoy?” he whispers, bringing his hand down. “Where’s Boyce?”

 

Why was McCoy treating him?

 

“Sorry to disappoint,” McCoy says with an undignified snort.

 

“No...not...not disappointed,” he says too swiftly. “Just curious.”

 

“No need to explain yourself, sir.”

 

“I trust you, I just wondered—”

 

“Sir, let’s sweep it under the rug.”

 

“But—”

 

“No more about it, and that's final.”

 

The doctor's voice is demanding enough for him to yield, strangely enough.

 

He sighs, sensing they could continue in circles if he didn’t feel like a ship had fallen on him. “Alright, you win. What...happened?”

 

“How about I tell you after we remove those bandages from your eyes?”

 

That is fine with him. He nods, but is too tired to ask why there are bandages over his eyes, though the thought crosses his mind.

 

The bed moves, easing him upright to a comfortable sitting position.

 

A hand touches his wrist. A warm, gentle hand. “I’m going to remove the bandages very slowly, sir. You’ll feel a pull to your skin, but it won’t hurt. I promise. We’re giving you doses of pain medication every four hours the rest of the day.”

 

Shit, that must mean…surely Boyce hadn’t given him access to his records without his permission. “I’m allergic...to many meds.”

 

“I know. I've read your medical file.”

 

His heart begins to race, the machines around him mimicking the thrumming in his ears.

 

“Steady, Captain,” McCoy says, squeezing his shoulder. “Not sure what has you all worked up, but I wouldn’t get too excited. Your heart is a bit weak at the moment.”

 

The advice doesn’t help at all. His heart is weak? The hell it is. Since when?

 

“Sir, you gotta calm down.”

 

He opens his mouth to cry out but is pulled back under to the floating, head in clouds dream he’d had. This time a man with a hearty scowl but gentle touch is with him.

 

He embraces it.

 

“Dr. McCoy, rate of respiration is 26 and rising.”

 

“Dammit, we can’t take a chance. We’ll have to sedate him,” McCoy says urgently above his head.

 

It’s the last thing he hears before there is a pinch to his neck and darkness claims him.

 

 

oOo

 

 

McCoy is silent as he stands with his superior at the foot of Kirk’s bed. The captain has been in sickbay for five days now, hardly conscious for any of them. Kirk shows signs that he will awaken soon, which is why he will be ready this time.

 

Boyce had entrusted him with Kirk’s care up until now, including the surgery the first day, given that he’s known exactly what to do to help him. It’s a good feeling. A really good feeling. He’d saved the captain’s _life_.

 

But that doesn’t mean he’s unaware that Kirk would feel more at ease with his CMO around, instead of him.

 

“We’d have lost him if you hadn’t been there,” Boyce murmurs.

 

He can’t imagine the Enterprise without its captain and grunts in agreement. “He’ll need another two days or so to recover here, one in his quarters, and then I recommend light duty for at least a week as he regains his strength.”

 

Boyce chuckles softly. “Good luck telling him that.”

 

McCoy’s eyebrows shoot up. “Me?”

 

Boyce nods. “You’re his attending physician until this threat is over and he’s back to full duty.”

 

Talk about surreal... “He won’t like that.”

 

“He’ll suck it up,” Boyce affirms. “I feel more confident with you in charge of his health than me in this case, and I won’t shy away from telling him that.”

 

It’s logical. This medical knowledge he has...it’s not something he can just rattle off. It’s deep and detailed, connected to countless other facts. It’s innate. It’s what he used every time the captain had a setback as he recovered from the toxin.

 

“Well, well,” Boyce breathes with a smile. “Look who’s up.”

 

McCoy looks at Kirk, who squints at them. He’d removed the post-surgical bandages while Kirk had been sedated the third day, not long after he’d first awakened.

 

“Captain, how are you feeling?” McCoy asks as he goes to his side.

 

Kirk shades his eyes from the light. “I’m not dead?”

 

“Computer, lights at thirty percent,” McCoy says, frowning at the genuine shock in the captain’s voice. “No, sir, you’re very much alive.”

 

“Thought I was,” Kirk rasps, eyes filling with confusion. “Feels like it.”

 

“Hear that machine beside you? It’s telling you that you’re as stubborn as ever. We almost lost you...twice. Long story short, sir, the Exogorians tried to kill you with a toxin to gain the Qua’onites’ respect and stop a war between them.”

 

“Huh.” Kirk blinks, a few seconds passing as he appears to take it in. “Well, shit. Did it work?”

 

He swallows a laugh. Kirk doesn't ask about his own health but gets straight to the point? He should’ve expected that. “Yes, sir, they signed a peace treaty with Commander Spock as their witness. But, you’re very much alive, sir. I just happened to know a few things about Anathyte, the Exogorians’ mating toxin.”

 

“You just happened to know…” Kirk’s brow furrows as if in concentration. “Huh,” he says again. “Thank you,” he adds finally, looking up at him.

 

They stare at each other, as if weighing the emotion and gratitude in each other’s eyes. At least, that is what he finds himself doing until the captain’s cerulean blue pulls him in deeper and deeper and—

 

_Dammit, sir._

 

Boyce clears his throat, a gentle reminder that he has no business dallying in thoughts about his captain.

 

McCoy returns to his few short years of medical professionalism and schools his features. He takes a steadying breath, hoping that the captain stops looking at him like he wants to eat him.

 

Or was it like he wants McCoy to eat _him_?

 

“Just doing my job, sir. Now, let’s see if we can get you something to…” He coughs. “Eat.”

 

_Dammit, sir._

 

“Call me Jim,” Kirk says. “You did just save my life, after all.”

 

The captain wants them to be more _personal_? Why doesn’t he just kiss him and satisfy his curiosity, at least? Just get it the hell _over_ with?

 

“McCoy?”

 

Jesus, he’s going to need an extra workout in the gym today. “All in a day’s work…” He tests the name in his mind again, dare his voice reveal any hesitation when he says it. “ _Jim_.”

 

Kirk’s—Jim’s—lips quirk into a smile. “McCoy, you’re a fast learner.”

 

“Have to be around here, Jim. I heard the captain’s a bit harsh.”

 

Jim looks insulted. “Harsh?”

 

He shrugs. “He is with his shirts, or so I'm told. Maybe he should stop drinking coffee. The caffeine isn’t good for him, anyway. I’ll be back with your lunch.” He scowls. “One that _doesn’t_ include the black stuff you keep spilling on yourself. You’re enough work for us around here without us having to constantly take things to the refresher.”

 

He doesn’t meet the captain’s eyes, but he feels the heat from them just the same as he turns away.

 

Jim’s laughter follows him long after he closes the curtain with one sweep of his hand. He refrains from face-palming himself in front of the rest of the staff.

 

Barely.

 

How can he even face Kirk—and Boyce—after that?

 

He’s doomed.

 

Dammit, _Jim_.


	2. 2.1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! And so very sorry for my extended absence! You have no idea how much it saddened me that I couldn't keep writing and posting the past four or five months. I'd be a millionaire if I had a penny for every time I thought of my WIPs and all of you who've been committed to them. Life has been very busy and challenging these past several months, leaving little writing time, but I think I'm finally finding my footing and getting used to our new schedule. 
> 
> I've discovered that my prime writing time in this season of life is late, and I mean late. But I'm determined to end this dry writing spell, and enjoy creating these worlds for Jim and Bones, so staying up into the wee hours of the morning is truly a small sacrifice. I hope you enjoy this installment, which nearly got away from me. I decided to split it up so I wouldn't have to keep you all waiting any longer than you had to for an update. This is Chapter Two, Part One. Also, for the record, I had an epiphany about this story and I confess that it may be going in a different direction than I'd first planned, but close. Very close, but different. ;) 
> 
> Many thanks to my sweet friends, junker5 and diamondblue4, for their encouragement and attentiveness to this story, and others. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to properly thank you both for all that you've done for me, for these fics, for my somewhat fragile spirit...so these little tributes in the author's notes must suffice for now. I'm overjoyed that we share our love for Jim and Bones, for without that, we would have never met. Hugs.
> 
> I can't wait to hear what you all think of this chapter! Enjoy...Jim, Bones, and Spock enduring whatever trials the author decides to put them through. ;)

 

***

 

2.1

 

***

 

_He tugs at his shackles, which are primitive at best. They’ve worn away skin. Blisters have appeared, and he can no longer feel anything below the ankles. Funny, since they are swollen and bloody, evidence of his merciless captors. He’ll have hell to pay once Boyce—no, McCoy—finds him._

_The cold bites bone-deep, and there is no respite from the pain. He doesn’t have much time, he thinks. They’d said this was the last._

_The last...what?_

_He hadn’t had the strength to question them, or their long-fingered, bug-like alien jailers. But the answer seems to come, anyway._

_Death is near. Inevitable. He hasn’t eaten, hasn’t drunk, hasn’t seen the light of day. For how long? He’s lost count, his mind drifting away as his body fails._

_He’s felt alone his entire life, but nothing compares to this. Utter seclusion. Sensory deprivation, save for his chains._

_Plink!_

_Plunk!_

_He tenses. He knows that noise. Bodies shuffle towards his cell, meaning only one thing._

_But they hate weakness, and so does he, and he finds himself muffling a traitorous cry of protest. He can’t bear the thought of more torture, pain that tempts him to become compliant and dependent in order to make it stop. At one time, being blindfolded had had its benefits. Now, the thought of never knowing when their bony fingers were about to touch him sends a shiver down his spine._

_Plink! Plink!_

_He curls into himself, leaning into the corner as if it will protect him from all harm._

_Captain!_

_He tries to think of a better place. A place, and a man, who comforts._

_He squeezes his eyes against the darkness. It’s better this way, he tells himself. Going mad. He has no hope here, save for the image of McCoy, though that was disintegrating with each torture session._

_He is terrified and his stomach reacts accordingly._

_He vomits, conditioned by their actions, as the dreaded symphony continues. Plink! Plunk! CRASH!_

_He lifts his head, forgetting the blindfold. What was tha—_

_His heart flutters, stealing his breath. He hears voices. A scuffle. His cell door openi—_

_—Captain!_

With a gasp, he awakens at the unbidden call which courses through his ears as a familiar, low drawl. The horrors he just experienced start to slowly fade, as he comes back to reality. He doesn’t have to look down at himself to know that his sheets are soaked with sweat for the third time this week, pulled down and twisted, firmly locking his body in place. He doesn’t have to think twice about to whom that voice belongs, either.

 

Were that man beside him now, his cover-worthy body behind his own and a hand around his waist, for even one night, he’d never lie to his mother about his (nonexistent) love life or forgo his vegetables ever again.

 

His fingers twitch, one hand at his side and the other twisted in the sheets, as he realizes the extent of his vulnerability. The paralysis of his body in his dreams. The fear and hopelessness he'd once experienced as a slave, manifesting themselves in the same manner. The battering of his heart against his chest. The uncharacteristic light-headedness he has every morning when he considers who’s been taking over his care, little by little.

 

He owes his pain, his discomfort, his longing to Boyce, whose interference had made all the difference in his relationship with McCoy. He and the young doctor are now civil with one another, and Jim takes all the responsibility when and if things are strained between them, which is, thankfully, a rare occurrence. Sometimes, he just can’t help himself—flirting with someone he is highly attracted to has always been in his nature—and has to rein it in with as much control as possible. Sometimes leaving a confused look on McCoy’s face if he isn’t careful.

 

But at least they are friends—or working on it—and both of them healthy.

 

In his dreams, crude chains had bound his feet rather than the smooth fabric his yeoman had ordered especially for his quarters. Rare, smooth-as-silk fabric manufactured in the mining planet of Vlon in the Neutral Territory. Incredibly rare and specifically tailored to his body, thanks to unmatched engineering. A snug fit to cocoon his body and ward off his inconvenient recurring bouts of insomnia, leaving him lying on his bed, wide awake for hours.

 

He tries to move his legs, but it’s a futile effort. Phantom pains plague his sluggish limbs as well as the phantom call—his name cradled in a husky voice—echoing without ceasing.

 

He wants to laugh at the ridiculousness that he, an adult, a captain, has found himself in. But his chest heaves with broken breaths, and his struggles leave him short of breath. He’s forced to submit.

 

But submission isn’t his nature.

 

He won’t be able to breathe properly if he struggles any harder, alerting Boyce or McCoy through the resulting alarms...so he yields to the warning signs his body provides, relaxing until he’s pressed back into the mattress in defeat. An odd pressure lessens in his throat but he chokes on a silent cry, tears leaking from the corners of his eyes.

 

How in the hell has he been reduced to this? The mission that had led to his imprisonment for eighty days had been two years ago. He should be over it. He has to be beyond it, or six months in therapy will have been wasted.

 

Not since his teen years has he endured such frequent and emotionally traumatic dreams. (He dares not call them nightmares. The experience is unpleasant enough without that description hanging over his head.)

 

Getting to the bridge is far from his mind, and time slowly ticks by. He thinks of McCoy. He thinks of Boyce’s resignation that he’s sure will pop up in his inbox any day now. He thinks of McCoy. He thinks of calling his Mom on his birthday, a day that is approaching faster than he likes. He thinks of McCoy. He thinks of excuses to stay up late, anything to avoid these bizarre and twisted flashes.

 

_He thinks of McCoy._

 

He opens his eyes and stares up at the ceiling. It’s a perfect blank slate, and he makes every effort to map the nothingness until his mind is an exact copy. It isn’t hard to do. He’s had practice.

 

Waking up to McCoy’s voice—if in a dream—is the only pleasant thing about these “incidents.” This one had been the worst one yet, and like the ones before, he’d been kidnapped and sequestered away by Romulans—curse of his father, he supposes—and left to die, chained to a cold, unyielding wall after hours under the hands of skilled torturers. And it isn’t the rats that had chewed on his hair at night which bothers him. Or the rod that his jailer had prodded him with, making him scream in pain every single time. Or the _other_ rod that had pierced through the skin of his most sensitive areas.

 

No, it’s the way he yields to one man and one man alone. A phantom. An untouchable, unreachable man as long as he’s captain of this ship.

 

He remains in bed for a long minutes, craving the calming stillness, before he slips off the bed and proceeds methodically in getting ready for his shift. As he shaves, he can’t shake the recurrent thoughts of his young doctor. As he dresses and pulls on his boots, he can’t ignore the implications of yet another nightmare in such a short time period. As he downs his coffee, he can’t stop considering how someday, just maybe, his infatuation will be too much for him to tamp down.

 

His weaknesses threatens his ability to command, and he forces himself to finish his morning routine, battling the fog he’s in as if he’s some love-sick teenager.

 

But when he steps out, eyes squinting against the light in the corridor, the door to his quarters closes, and he is fully the captain of the Enterprise, leaving his personal thoughts behind.

 

Good riddance.

 

He shakes his head at his pitiful state of mind and walks briskly away from his quarters, offering a nod to the few crew members he passes, their faces brightening as if they know about the exhaustion brought about by his recent sleeping habits and are happy to see him up and about. He has only five minutes to get to his ready room and prepare for a meeting with Admiral Barnett, a dreary business of its own. Barnett should know by now who will be Spock’s temporary replacement for the next eight weeks. But he won’t put it past the admiral to make him wait another day, just to test him. The admiral has never liked him much, but at least he can count on Admiral Pike. He can’t think of a time when the older man _hasn’t_ watched his back.

 

Especially in the Academy, when his life had continuously run amok.

 

Five minutes. Which was no time at all, really, on a ship the size of the Enterprise. After yet another evening spent by himself, going to bed early like a lonely old man, and another picking up his razor to shave the beard he longs to keep for the ‘mask’ it would give him, and still another watching, from afar, McCoy beating Sulu at cards, he has no reason to be running this far behind. He’ll be lucky if he’s fashionably late.

 

But that can be attributed to the countless circles he’s made laying awake in his bed for over an hour, trying to convince himself that it’s better to squash his pining heart before he gets his hopes up. McCoy’s sudden interest in social activities on the ship probably had more to do with Nyota’s insistent nagging than the burgeoning friendship between McCoy and his  
captain.

 

He winces, visibly. There he goes again. His captain.

 

He isn’t McCoy’s _anything_.

 

It’s impossible to eliminate the depression fighting to control his every thought, but he suppresses it the best that he can and strides through the corridors with an air of confidence. But instead of staying on the straight and narrow, he hesitates and makes a sharp right to catch a different lift. He has no time for this, not today. Not ever.

 

But he makes his way to the bridge, via his new short-cut, like he does now every other day. It isn’t much of a short-cut at all, but a route that adds two point four minutes to his time according to Spock.

 

Killjoy.

 

Doesn’t Spock know that it’s worth it? That Jim will do whatever it takes to see Leonard McCoy on the way to _his_ shift, before they both immerse themselves into the workings of the ship?

 

But now that Jim is running later than usual, he’ll most likely miss his chance.

 

He’d recently and accidentally discovered that the object of his affection stumbles out of his quarters with his hair half-combed before his shift, squinting blearily both ways down the corridor as the door closes behind him. This is usually followed by a resigned sigh from the doctor and a shake of his head. Then, when McCoy walks toward the lift, it’s with a slouch to his shoulders until he catches himself and rolls them back. His youthful lips will shape into a firm line of tension like he’s walking the plank instead of heading for his coveted position on the Enterprise and under the most distinguished physician in all of Starfleet—and in the most advanced starship medbay in the universe. Commanded by the man who is most likely his second closest friend on the ship, next to Boyce.

 

If one can call sitting at the same table in the mess hall with mutual friends and making small talk over Spock’s head, friends. Or spending time in a quiet game room, not even playing the same game, friends. Or any other lame-ass way Jim pretends he’s “becoming friends with McCoy.”

 

But he never sees Jim, his eyes never rest on his face. (Is Jim _that_ forgettable in his late twenties? Has he misinterpreted the way they’ve fallen into easy conversation?) McCoy never pauses to acknowledge him outside his quarters, on the few days of the week that Jim takes this route. McCoy doesn’t even salute, the respectful thing to do when the captain is walking toward you, only a meter or two away.

 

It’s like the young doctor is either far away on another planet or already thinking of his patients. He also wonders what keeps Leonard up at night to cause his slightly hung-over look other than worrying about his patients. It can’t be much, can it? Leonard is only twenty, having lived with his well-to-do parents until he was sixteen before attending med school. His healthy, muscular physique is probably one of the best and most attractive on the ship and probably has always been that way. To the naked eye, there is nothing wrong with McCoy.

 

But, again, that is Jim’s professional opinion.

 

Jim has caught him standing unassumingly in the doorway of his office while reading charts, in a way that mimics that of a model that one would see on a holozine cover. The few times he’s been down to sickbay since he’d spent some time there as a patient four weeks ago, that is. As _Leonard’s_ patient.

 

Jim shivers at the mere thought of the mission—or, rather, the assassination attempt—that had nearly cost him his life. As much as he had enjoyed being under the watchful care of McCoy and monopolizing the young doctor’s attention and concern, he doesn’t want to repeat the scenario anytime soon. Even if it means missing the opportunity to learn a little more about this mysterious man who had only recently started to reveal cracks in his introverted shell.

 

Jim’s aversion to sickbay is too great for him to go as far as purposefully running into trouble to continue observing how McCoy has acclimated himself on the ship. Especially now that McCoy knows some of his many secrets, and even though he’d always acted professionally, never questioning him about what he’d read in Jim’s extensive medical file that one fateful day, he doesn’t bet that it will always be that way.

 

Jim’s stomach churns. It never is.

 

It’s obvious that McCoy has a good head on his shoulders. However, Jim, of all people, realizes that looks can be deceiving.

 

Boyce had immediately approached Jim when he was considering the number of transfer requests to the Enterprise. And when he’d first explained how skilled and conscientious McCoy was about his work Jim hadn’t been surprised that his CMO was doing all he could to put in a positive word for the good doctor. Boyce had held McCoy up as a doctor that met his high standard from the very beginning of McCoy’s time on the ship. He’d treated him as a peer, like _he_ was the CMO and Boyce was the subordinate with McCoy the only one who would have the power to outrank the captain in a medical emergency. McCoy had accomplished so much in so little time, after all, hadn’t he? He was either the greatest actor in the universe or a man with exceptional medical skills, along with an incredibly soft heart under a thick exterior of charming Southern sass.

 

He wonders, not for the first time, what has caused him to shroud himself with mystery and don a permanent mask of indifference to anything beyond sickbay.

 

Because Jim knows that McCoy is far from being the indifferent or cold, experienced physician he tries to be. Jim had taken advantage of his time in sickbay in more ways than one, had noticed when the doctor examined his patients with a gentle hand, his speech never condescending but always truthful and kind.

 

Looking back, he can’t help but see for himself—without Spock’s deadpanned observations this time—that he’d fallen quickly for McCoy and it was a hole he didn’t want to climb out of. (But should.)

 

It’s been only five months since the Enterprise’s newest doctor had boarded his ship, but he swears they’ve known each other longer than that. Forever, even. Not that he’ll ever tell him something so fanciful.

 

Oh, God, no. He can just imagine the look on the younger man’s face—and his subsequent transfer request.

 

With that, Jim sighs in resignation and lifts his PADD to get a head start on his duties for the day as he walks through the corridors. He checks messages first, choosing one from Barnett that had come through just ten minutes ago. He reads the first line, and his good mood quickly sours.

 

One name is all it takes for his already rocky morning to fall straight to the bottom of a put with a deafening thud.

 

_Gary Mitchell._

 

“Damn it all to hell,” he whispered.

 

If anyone could put a damper on Jim’s newfound yet stilted friendship with McCoy—or his own one-sided pining—it was the bastard that had made his life a living hell much of his Academy life.

 

He drops his hand to his side, his PADD in with a death grip and a scowls so fiercely the ensign walking towards him promptly picks up her stride and hustles past him.

 

Of all the qualified officers in Starfleet, somehow he’s been stuck with Mitchell. He inwardly seethes. Apparently, the Admiralty thought they could replace, even temporarily, the best damn Commander in the fleet with a cocky and second rate First Officer. His scowl deepens. And, apparently, the brass has a very short memory.

 

Mitchell _had_ gotten away with hardly more than a hand slap for what he’d done to Jim. Sexual harassment. Bullying. Stealing. Humiliating pranks. _Public_ sexual harassment. All that, swept under the rug because of Mitchell’s highly-connected family, like Jim’s family meant nothing?

 

He’d blamed it on the constant rumors Mitchell and his gang had spread about him.

 

Easy. A slut. Always begging for it.

 

And the times he’d felt so lost at the Academy—or used, thanks to Mitchell—that he turned to booze and the social hour at a bar off campus, not realizing that one of Mitchell’s cronies, Hendorff, had followed him more than once and later reported him, resulting in demerits that he had spent in PE working off.

 

The memories are fresher than he’d expected. Shame and regret flood him as he remembers the humiliation, and his face grows hot. Though the rumors had been false, mostly, Jim himself had laughed them off, damning himself in a desperate attempt to make the problem—and Mitchell—go away and leave him alone.

 

At the very least, Jim should have been allowed this opportunity to select Spock’s temporary replacement while he went to be with his father, who was ill with a rare Vulcan disease. It hasn't been the best timing—several vital missions are in the Enterprise’s near future—but Jim had already reassured Spock and the Vulcan had eventually agreed that the ship would run satisfactorily in his stead.

 

Naturally, Spock wanted to be with his father but he hadn’t told Jim of Sarek’s illness until the day he had caught Spock red-handed—he’d spaced out on the bridge and missed a question directed at him. And not one question, but two.

 

_Spock? Spaced out?_

 

Unbelievable. He had never seen his first officer so out of sorts and knew right away that it—whatever it was—was a matter of life or death. After several years serving side-by-side on the Enterprise, he has a sixth sense about him and had approved Spock’s temporary leave of absence in a heartbeat.

 

Spock will leave today and somehow Jim has to bluff when the Vulcan asks him who his replacement is and why Jim is not himself—for the first officer is quite intuitive about Jim in turn. Somehow, Jim has to smile honestly so Spock can leave the ship guilt-free.

 

But, it might not be as hard as Jim fears, for he has never told Spock much about Mitchell. In fact, as public as Jim’s life has been, that dark era of his life he’s tried to keep hidden. He’s succeeded, in part because of Pike. In part, because Mitchell was older, graduated before he did, and went on to assignments as a new officer. And, lastly, he credits his success to good old Kirkian luck. His “exploits” in the academy faded into the background once Jim had secured his captaincy after Nero.

 

“Just so you know, you’re cutting through here later than usual.”

 

Jim’s heart lurches. _That voice._ He barely refrains from snapping his head to the right to look at McCoy.

 

The younger man falls easily into rhythm with Jim’s quick stride, and walks with him. He senses McCoy’s eyes upon him, but he doesn’t reciprocate.

 

Jim is at a loss for words. Had McCoy waited for him?

 

“A good fifteen minutes, in fact,” McCoy continues, shoving his hands into his pockets, a look that seems too casual for a doctor on a starship but on McCoy, it’s simply perfect. Jim looks down at his hands in an attempt to hide his surprise. “Everything okay?”

 

His body will most likely react to the doctor’s close proximity—and his casual interest into his well-being—in an unseemly way very soon, and it’s all he can do to ignore the fact that McCoy _had_ waited for him to walk past his quarters. That he’s noticed Jim all these times that he was so sure the doctor was half-asleep stepping out of his quarters and needed a few more minutes to wake up.

 

He doesn't quite know what to think.

 

In an effort to appease McCoy, an answer slips from his mouth, before he can come up with a more appropriate one. “You tell me.”

 

Silence.

 

He mentally facepalms himself. What the hell was that? You tell _me?_

 

Against his better judgment, he looks down at the screen and the offensive name.

 

 _Mitchell_.

 

His lips, unbeknownst to him, move in a spoken whisper.

 

“All right,” McCoy says slowly after another pause. “Something is wrong.”

 

He looks back at him as they come to the lift.

 

McCoy’s eyes search his face. “Captain?” he prods.

 

Jim thinks it’s odd that although McCoy’s voice is quiet compared to the hustle and bustle surrounding them, it’s louder than any of it. He hears it above the rest, even over the steady beating of his heart.

 

“Commander Spock,” he finally says, ready to step into the lift once it’s empty but would rather be polite and wait. “He’s leaving today.”

 

McCoy nods. “Saw him just a little bit ago.” He stretches out an arm and nods, indicating that Jim should proceed him. “After you, Captain.”

 

Jim acquiesces, his mind racing as he tries to figure out where the hell he’d been going with that.

 

The lift closes, and he asks the computer to take him to the bridge.

 

“And his replacement?” McCoy asks when the ensuing pause grows too long.

 

He hesitates, then flashes a smile at McCoy. With any luck, his charm will kick in about now. “He’ll be arriving tomorrow.”

 

It’s all he can say without succumbing to his own fear.

 

“I see,” McCoy says softly.

 

But it’s written plain and clear on McCoy’s face that he doesn’t understand at all. At least, that he doesn’t understand Jim’s simplified answer.

 

Jim’s smile vanishes immediately and he clenches the PADD at his side. He’ll be spending his lunch break coming up with a way to deny Mitchell’s presence on board his ship without calling attention to their shared past.

 

McCoy clears his throat. “Is there something else?”

 

Oh, no. He’s practically as perceptive as Spock. And as determined as Boyce can be when Jim is less than forthcoming about his health.

 

“No, why?” Jim asks, tension creeping into his shoulders.

 

He wills him not to press.

 

He wills him not to have this healthy concern for his captain.

 

But it’s clear that Jim’s desires have no place in the universe.

 

McCoy cocks his head. “Have you been sleeping?”

 

“No, not at—no, yes! I mean yes,” Jim hastily amends. “Why?”

 

“If you don’t mind me saying so, captain, you look a little rough around the edges.”

 

He frowns. “I look bad?”

 

Now McCoy scowls. “Only in the sense that you look...” His voice trails off as the lift opens.

 

They both look at each other, unmoving.

 

_Only in the sense…_

 

McCoy doesn’t elaborate, doesn’t answer the unspoken question. But he wants to know what McCoy sees, if only to ward off further suspicion, so he makes a choice. “Computer, close doors.” He swallows, glances at the floor before lifting his gaze to meet the doctor’s eyes in a show of confidence. “Yes?”

 

“You’re not sleeping,” McCoy says flatly.

 

“I have been—”

 

“Uh, huh,” McCoy says simultaneously.

 

Jim is not to be undone. “—really, I—”

 

Jim’s mouth snaps shut when the doctor folds his arms and stares him down in what has to be the most intimidating “bullshit” pose he’s ever seen. It's even better than Spock’s.

 

“Right.” He sighs, and offers him a small smile. “Boyce?”

 

McCoy nods. “You did give him permission to discuss—”

 

“I know,” Jim interrupts. “I’m just...testy.”

 

Testy and, as the memory of Gary’s breath on the back of his neck, when he would not take no for an answer, terrified.

 

(Had he really been that naive, despite his checkered past? Had he really been that damn needy, that he’d fallen into bed, willingly, with the very first man who’d shown interest in him at the Academy)

 

(Had he really been that lonely?)

 

“Sarek does have a good chance.” McCoy’s hopeful assessment—and change of topic—is a welcome relief.

 

Jim expels a breath, and not just because he wants to believe it’s true. He can easily mask his apprehension about Mitchell with concern for Spock, although he does feel a bit of guilt for doing so. It’s hard for him to meet the doctor’s eyes. In fact, he doesn’t. “For Spock’s sake, I hope that’s true.”

 

“Having his son there will make all the difference.”

 

Something in McCoy’s voice makes him look up at him. And then he can’t place it, not exactly, but there’s something in his eyes that’s not right. A touch of emotion that is almost unbearable to observe.

 

For this McCoy is so young, so fresh, that he hates to think he’s already been handed a hard life. And it doesn’t matter to Jim that he’d lived ten lifetimes by the doctor’s age. No one should have half the personal history he does, or come close. Jim can handle life’s storms, the unexpected crap life throws at him. On other people, innocent people like McCoy, the results would look completely different. It ages. It wears. It destroys. (He sees the signs in those soulful eyes of his.)

 

But on Jim, it’s just another endurance test that will get him through the next—and inevitable—difficulty that comes his way. It’s a skill he’d learned from a young age, one that allows him to wear the mask he dons now. He's mastered the art of hiding his insecurities, whatever the personal cost.

 

“Yeah,” Jim says roughly.

 

“I can give you a sleeping aid.” McCoy steps closer to Jim, his taller frame seeing to look above his own more than ever, as he looks down at him with an authoritative air he swears was not quite perfect just yesterday.

 

Jim tries not to swallow in nervous response, or wipe the sweat coating his brow. “Dependency.”

 

McCoy doesn’t miss a beat. “I’ll give you one that isn’t habit forming.”

 

He hesitates again. “You don’t have—”

 

The lines firm around McCoy’s eyes, aging him. “But I do.”

 

Jim takes a deep breath. This is what Boyce wants, this is what Boyce is counting on McCoy to do. Take care of the captain, and damned if Jim is going to make things harder for Boyce, the man who has saved his life more times than he has fingers. A man who has earned to do whatever the hell he wanted to do the rest of his life. He trusted Boyce in all things, including the choice he’s made for his replacement.

 

He nods. “Okay.”

 

McCoy relaxes his stance, rolls back on his feet. “You won’t regret it.”

 

And maybe he won’t. With Gary on board his ship, he assumes his sleeping habits will only worsen.

 

They had during the year they’d lived together.

 

He’s a fool to think Mitchell won’t think of him as _his_ to command at least once, to lead and direct, instead of Jim commanding him, as was his duty and right. But he’s dealt with difficult crew members—including officers—before. He’s also a different man from the one Gary remembers.

 

(Besides, he can handle it. He has to.)

 

“Spock to Captain Kirk.”

 

Thankful for the interruption before his thoughts spiraled out of control and into dangerous territory, Jim flips his communicator open. “This is Kirk. What can I do for you, Commander?”

 

“Your presence is requested on the bridge, sir.”

 

“I’ll be right there.”

 

He meets McCoy’s gaze, finds him in front of the lift doors, and nods. “Well, I must be on my way.”

 

McCoy’s eyes narrow on him. “This isn’t the bridge.”

 

He frowns. “What?”

 

“You gave the command for a different location.”

 

Jim shakes his head, steps forward confidentially. “I remember—”

 

McCoy reaches, stopping him by wrapping his warm fingers around Jim’s cool wrist. “254C?”

 

The thudding in Jim’s ears is overwhelming.

 

254C?

 

How could he have…? Why had he…? Was he this messed up? What the hell is wrong with him?

 

He couldn’t have said the number of Gary’s apartment and, later, Jim’s, his sophomore year.

 

“Oh, that’s…” He stands stockstill. He has nothing good to say, and he’s a terrible liar, obviously.

 

McCoy gently squeezes his wrist. “Must be important.”

 

He forces a smile to his lips, a smile that feels more like a grimace. “Yes, it is.”

 

“Okay,” McCoy says, as gently as Jim has ever heard him speak.

 

(He wants to hear this gentleness again. And again.)

 

His heart continues to race as he realizes McCoy is not letting go of his wrist, and that he doesn’t want him to. It’s...nice. “I...I better get...going.”

 

McCoy still doesn't move. “If you need to talk, you know how to find me.”

 

Jim’s breath catches. He expects him to finally let go of him and step aside for now, but he doesn’t.

 

McCoy’s brows furrow, instead. “You will find me today, won’t you? I need to give you the medication for sleep.”

 

“Sure,” he says quickly, wondering why he can’t let this man down in any way, even when his skin twitches at the thought of entering sickbay voluntarily.

 

“Good,” the doctor says, though his frown is severe.

 

“It’s just—” Jim sucks in a breath. He should stop now, before he digs a hole for himself r can't climb out of, and loses his command because he is too forthright with how he’s really feeling. He has to hide it, the worst of it, for a little while longer.

 

McCoy must have seen that as an opportunity, for he is quick to question Jim again. “Do you know what could have possibly triggered the return of your memories from when you were a prisoner?”

 

The most traumatic thing Jim has experienced since then has been the assassination attempt, when he almost died. He can’t connect the two, not really, and shakes his head. “No.”

 

“Don't forget to see me when your shift is over.” McCoy pauses and his eyes are unyielding. “Because I won’t, and I won't like hunting you down, Captain,” he continues, letting go of him.

 

The image of a scowling McCoy chasing him on his beloved ship amuses him more than it should.

 

(And, no, he isn’t disappointed over the loss of contact. Not one bit.)

 

(Or so he tells himself.)

 

He gives a short laugh. “Are you always this blunt with everyone? Or is it just me?”

 

McCoy snorts. “Don’t flatter yourself. Experience has taught me straight talk works better than polite and pretty words.”

 

Jim is sure McCoy swallowed the ‘with you’ he intended for the end of that sentence. It’s just the sort of reply he needs to make him smile for the first time, and it grows when he sees McCoy’s lips twitch in return.

 

Jim chuckles. “See you later,” he says, and slips past him onto the bridge.

 

He’s not a meter away when McCoy calls after him, in a gruff drawl, “Of course it’s just you, Captain. Just didn’t want you to get any ideas about prescribing your own care. When it comes to your medical care, I'll be calling the shots.”

 

oOo

 

For the first time since his transfer, McCoy had lied to Kirk’s face. He’d said he wouldn’t enjoy hunting him down if necessary but the fact is that he would if it’s his job to do so—and it is his job, in a manner of speaking. He’d be caring for the most important person on the ship, the one man on whom the crew depended upon the most.

 

But this infatuation, even after all he’s done to get Kirk out of his head, isn’t letting up. He’s about ready to give up fighting it, to just make a move that involves more than just taking the captain’s slender, elegant hands—Good God what had he been thinking? Other than of the captain’s hands?—and he’s not sure what that says about him. He looks so young, but he feels far too old to have a crush on his superior, one that had begun almost immediately upon seeing him for the first time.

 

Granted, he wouldn't have handled it any other way. He’s observed Kirk long enough to understand the captain doesn’t suffer fools, that he doesn’t want anyone to beat around the bush when it comes to the workings of the ship. McCoy feels the same way about how he practices with his medicine. The captain is integral to the smooth operation of the Enterprise, and it makes sense to be firm but clear with him, even more so when he’s obviously struggling to get at least a solid six hours of sleep each night.

 

But his remarks had also been an attempt to break the serious mood the captain was experiencing, stop the pain from rising any higher in Jim’s eyes along with the sordid memories that clearly plagued him. He isn’t unaware of the way the captain’s face light up when he engages him in a battle of wits, or responds to his teasing with drawling sarcasm. The captain’s reaction had been better than he expected considering the circumstances, and he hopes that it’s one more sign that the camaraderie they’ve been developing is enough to fuel an easy but professional relationship as chief medical officer and captain in the future.

 

His position as CMO is all but finalized, and he has an idea as to when Boyce is making the switch.

 

Even if the captain doesn’t.

 

Boyce has already delayed it once, and he’d mentioned to McCoy yesterday that it still wasn’t the best time to hand in his resignation. When he had asked why, his mentor had merely said that it was in Jim’s best interest to wait until they knew for certain that Sarek was out of danger.

 

And although he’s assured Jim that Sarek would most likely be fine, it isn’t exactly the whole truth. (For the sake of the captain’s mental health, perhaps he hadn’t been as upfront and plain-speaking as he’s prided himself in being.) The Hi’klanni virus is named after the tribe on A’Kana, a Class M planet that had developed warp capability more than two thousand years ago. The Hi’klanni introduced the rare illness to pre-Surak Vulcan, and Sarek had contracted it as ambassador to one of their small colonies. The virus is difficult to treat, requiring an antidote that is individually bioengineered to each patient and, once the medication is administered, takes weeks, if not months, to cure. The only vials containing small amounts of the well-preserved ‘base’ antidote had been destroyed after Nero’s plan to annihilate all Vulcans had all but succeeded. New Vulcan’s top scientists had been forced to start from scratch, unfortunately. However, according to Spock, they were confident they could work efficiently and save his father, despite worries that Sarek’s recuperation from this particular strand of the virus was expected to be tedious and challenging.

 

But Sarek is strong. His spirit, according to Uhura, is even stronger.

 

And that better be all that it takes to make the treatment successful. Meanwhile, McCoy has to continue to keep the channel of communication open between his office and that of the Vulcan scientists, to keep Kirk updated and assure him that all is well.

 

(He’s surprised at himself, at how protective he’s become of the captain.)

 

Before he realizes it, he’s in sickbay, ready for his own shift and the surgery he’d been scheduled for.

 

Boyce approaches him the second he steps inside. “Leonard, you’re late.”

 

He opens his mouth to admit his mistake and apologize, because he knows his superior frowns on excuses, but Boyce continues before he can speak.

 

“I need to speak with you in my office.”

 

The command is cool and direct, and he blinks. He’s not used to anything less than warm professionalism from the older man, and instantly deduces that this involves more than his late arrival. Either he’d unknowingly made some mistake or something else is wrong—with Jim.

 

He replies with an amiable and steady, “Of course,” and follows him through a sea of personnel.

 

There is a moment of silence after McCoy steps into his office and the door closes behind him, and a look on Boyce’s face that he can’t decipher.

 

“Sit,” Boyce says, tersely, waving a hand at the empty chair across from his own seat at the desk.

 

Boyce’s face is darkening with each second, but he sits, swallowing back a feeling like he should run for his life. Whatever this is about, at the very least a proper reprimanding for his tardiness, it won’t be the worst thing he’s ever experienced. There isn’t a person on this tin can that knows, with any accuracy, how he completed both med school and a residency by the age of twenty, as recorded in his record, and the story—the painful years—behind that is what anchors him to his chair. He hasn’t persevered for nothing. Even if he is about to be transferred, away from the man who has lit a spark in his dead heart, he can take another punch. (And now he sounds like his ex-roommate, a pessimistic fellow who’d once told McCoy that he’d never overcome his problems to finish his degree and become a physician, let alone one in Starfleet.)

 

Boyce eyes him. “I’m not going to bite, Leonard.”

 

A sense of relief blooms in his chest, and he wags a brow. “Well, I did arrive late,” he offers with a self-directed scowl.

 

“I reassigned your surgery to M’Benga,” Boyce says, but he looks no less mollified. The older man actually slumps in his chair, running a hand over his face.

 

He looks closer at Boyce, and there is true pain in his eyes, unmasked as his superior lets down his guard.

 

He understands, now, that Boyce had been carefully hiding this emotion in the medbay. “Then what’s the problem?” he asks quietly.

 

“Something I’m not sure even Jim can handle.”

 

His heart lurches in his chest. “Sir?”

 

Boyce sighs and looks behind his shoulder. “Computer, bring up Commander Gary Mitchell of the U.S.S. Victory.”

 

He’s heard of Mitchell and his outstanding record—and his cocky attitude. Looking at the man on his screen he can whole-heartedly believe a few of the stories he’s heard over the years. There’s something about his expression in the holo that screams no surrender. He’s also young, although he looks younger in the photo than his true age, given the years of experience he’s had under the captain of the Victory.

 

But he, of all people, knows exactly how that feels.

 

He has no idea why this man even matters, and looks at Boyce.

 

But Boyce’s eyes are locked on the holo. “Let me put it to you straight. Mitchell and Jim have a history.” He pauses. “And by history, I mean...a tumultuous relationship.”

 

He can hear where this is going, and his stomach responds in kind to his trepidation with a slow but painful churning.

 

Boyce drums his fingers on his desk, cursing under his breath. “It just so happens that Admiral Barnett assigned this man as Commander Spock’s temporary replacement. A move that will most likely bring up past wounds for Jim.”

 

He stares at holo, trying to reconcile what Boyce is inferring with what Kirk might have endured while with Mitchell. None of it is good, and could explain the almost skittish reaction Jim has around him at times. “Are you speaking to me as a physician or a friend, Philip?”

 

“You catch on quickly, as always.” Boyce sighs again. “I’m speaking to you as a friend, just as Admiral Pike spoke to me this morning as a friend.”

 

He jerks his head up. “The Admiral?”

 

Boyce gives him smile that is sad, at best. “You’re just like Jim, you know, calling Chris ‘The Admiral,’ like he’s the only one that matters. It shows the man a lot of respect.”

 

“Well, in my humble opinion, it’s respect that’s due.”

 

“Barnett doesn’t quite agree with you,” Boyce says, dropping his smile. “For the record, Pike is absolutely appalled that Barnett even suggested that Mitchell serve under Kirk for this brief time. Barnett ignored Pike’s cautions and reminders, and finalized this arrangement without his blessing.”

 

“And Jim knows?”

 

He has to by now. In fact, he suspects that he’d learned that very fact during their conversation near or in the lift.

 

No wonder Jim hadn’t been himself. And with the captain struggling to maintain his professionalism and regular sleep schedule as it is, he can’t see how he’ll adjust to having Mitchell on board at all.

 

“Shit,” he breathes, kneading his forehead.

 

“Eloquently spoken,” Boyce mutters under his breath.

 

He hates to ask, but sees its necessity. “What happened between them?”

 

Wordlessly, Boyce brings up a file on his PADD and slides it over to him across the desk. “You’ve looked at his files, correct?”

 

He frowns. Boyce knows he’s looked at them. He reads the file, anyway, and blinks. He doesn’t recognize the list of injuries as being Kirk’s and double checks the date. The captain would have been in his early twenties, fresh at the Academy. “Wait. These weren’t there before—”

 

“Because they were classified.”

 

And...disgusting.

 

He swallows harshly and forces himself to return to the top, where the list begins. Numerous broken bones. Contusions on his hip and neck. A sprained ankle. Dehydration. Concussions. Confusion. Short term memory loss. The aftermath of vaguely described altercations, sparring matches in-class or incidents with a mugger.

 

Most, if not all of them, were obvious lies. Including the notations that Jim had retracted a few of the explanations for his injuries, claiming he could not remember the incidents well enough to be sure of the actual facts.

 

He’s sick to his stomach as he rereads them carefully for a third time so he doesn’t have to reread them again later. He might want to wring Jim’s neck for letting it go as long as he did—or he might be nursing the hurt rising in his own chest with some good whiskey, smuggled in to him by Mr. Scott. “And now they aren’t?” He pauses and looks back up at Boyce, and answers his own question. “Pike.”

 

He doesn’t mention the other entry he manages to read before he drags his attention away from Jim’s longer and sordid medical file, the very name causing his heart to begin to pound. One that now explains an extended period during Jim’s teen years that had noticeably lacked vital medical information.

 

His eyes widen as he reads it, as the implications hit him. _Tarsus_. Good God, that can’t be right. He’s seen signs of a major trauma in Jim’s record before, but not...not _this_.

 

“Yes, Pike, and no one else,” Boyce says harshly.

 

He can’t help but flinch. “I won’t breathe a word.”

 

“I know, and neither will Mitchell.” Boyce’s eyes fill with disgust. “That man has no honor. He got away with hurting Jim, a cadet whose reputation had been smeared, despite his family name, the second he’d joined Starfleet because people didn’t understand him and Jim was used to shoving people away if they got too close. Mitchell was never charged, nor were any of his friends who may have also caused those injuries. Why? Mitchell’s family not only lives and breathes Starfleet, they pour more than their share of money into memorials and studies that are vital to the advancement of the Federation.” He pauses, wincing. “I’m not proud of what Starfleet has done in the past, and I sure as hell hoped that after we lost so many good people, cadets and officers, that they'd come to their senses and put a stop to these...politics.”

 

Politics? He doesn’t know how Boyce can blame politics for this situation. How can he believe that's all they’re talking about given the information in Jm’s medical record. This is harassment—and _worse_.

 

“I think this is more than politics. There’s a damn bad apple among the brass,” he spits out.

 

Boyce firms his jaw. “No doubt, but I think many of them...haven’t dealt with these issues personally. It isn’t...understood. And with Jim, and his history of being a seemingly loose canon—even Pike admitted that to them when he explained why the hell Kirk had signed up for Starfleet—many sided with Mitchell whenever there was a public incident. Now, the details of what happened behind closed doors, only Jim and Gary know. Jim wasn’t exactly honest with Pike, though his medical records indicate that he’d participated in rough...sexual play...with or without his consent.” He looks away, and adds quietly, “Pardon my bluntness. But as Jim’s friend, I am quite concerned. I trust Jim will take measures to protect himself, but Mitchell is another story.”

 

McCoy clears his throat in an attempt to manage his conflicting emotions, which were threatening to power their way through to the surface in light of this information. “Isn’t there anything we can do to prevent this transfer? A loophole—”

 

“No,” Boyce clips. “There’s nothing we can do.”

 

“But this is abuse—”

 

“That went undocumented,” his mentor interrupts flatly. “You think Jim is going to accuse Mitchell of these things, after all this time? And risk a very public backlash? His own record as captain, ruined?”

 

It isn’t likely. “No,” he answers, pushing the device away. He feels no guilt whatsoever as he prays that Mitchell is lost in space during transport and never steps foot on the Enterprise. “What can we do?”

 

“Be aware of everything Mitchell does on this ship,” Boyce says, looking him straight in the eye. “I’ve watched you these past few weeks, Leonard. Not much gets past you when it comes to Jim.”

 

His breath hitches. “Sir—”

 

Boyce shakes his head, a grim smile rising on his face. “You forget that I’ve known Jim a long while by now, and have worked with you very closely for the past five months. And I’m getting wiser in my old age. I won’t say a word. I’m only saddened, on behalf of you both, that circumstances won’t permit—”

 

“Sir, you don’t have to say it,” he interjects. “In fact...I’d rather you not.”

 

It hurt enough already to know that, realistically, the object of his affections could never know how he feels about him. Although a relationship between senior officers wasn’t entirely banned, it _was_ frowned upon, especially if both served on the same vessel. The last thing he wants to do is make this mission any harder on Kirk than it already is.

 

Boyce scrutinizes him for a long moment. “Fair enough,” he says slowly.

 

“About Mitchell,” McCoy says, an unwelcome bitterness filling his mouth that, in the purest sense, at least, the Commander has experienced something with Jim that he most likely never will. A relationship with Jim. “Will you let the captain know we’ve read his complete medical records?”

 

That they know Jim couldn’t break off an unhealthy relationship? That Gary had used him?

 

“Me?” Boyce stands and rounds his desk, looking down at McCoy with a soft expression. “No. You will.”

 

His brows dart up in surprise. “Me?”

 

“He’ll need someone who’s on this ship, and that won’t be me.”

 

McCoy grimaced. “You changed your mind?”

 

“In two weeks we will meet up with the Regal, which will return to Earth. It will be the last chance I have, since the captain’s orders will take us far into the black.”

 

“I see.” But he has to admit that it seems like Boyce is abandoning an officer he's respected for years.

 

“Have confidence in yourself, Leonard,” Boyce says with a nod. “I do, and I know this change will go smoothly for Jim, thanks to you. About his records, inform him only if and when you deem it necessary, if you think it's in Jim’s best interests. I’d rather we all be prepared for now, but wait to see if Jim can ride this assignment out, without a problem, since it's temporary. He’s too stressed as it is. Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it. I’m not entirely sure it’s relevant at this point.”

 

He’s not sure how it couldn't be, but McCoy hopes for Jim’s sake that his past with Mitchell never comes up. For if it does become relevant, it will only mean one thing.

 

That Mitchell is up to his old tricks—and has managed to place his slimy hands on Jim.

 

oOo

 

Before he is able to orient himself with his day, it’s time for Spock’s departure, “Do you wish you were going with him?” Jim asks Nyota.

 

They’re standing off to the side in the transporter room, waiting as Spock speaks with McCoy one last time regarding his contacts, the scientists on New Vulcan.

 

She looks at Spock, her expression wistful. “I won’t lie. I do. This has been hard on him.”

 

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs.

 

She sucks in a breath and glances sideways at him. “But it’s been hard for more reasons than you realize.”

 

He frowns. He’s good at reading people, and can’t imagine what else would be bothering Spock other than what was already pretty damn stressful—his father’s health. “What do you mean?”

 

“He’s more worried about you than he is worried about his father’s recovery.”

 

That isn’t... _right_. He shakes his head, denying it. “No, he can’t be.”

 

She clutches his bicep. “Logic dictates his actions and emotions.”

 

“I’m aware of that, Nyoa,” he clips, feeling defensive.

 

She hesitates, but doesn’t seem to take offense from his terse reply. “If I may speak freely, Captain?”

 

At his nod, she continues. “He trusts that his father will survive this, but thinks that without him, you will no longer maintain the facade—”

 

“Now, wait a minute.”

 

“You said freely,” she points out.

 

So he had. “Yes, but that doesn't mean you get to insult me.”

 

Her eyes soften. “I’m not insulting you, captain, merely pointing out that the one person who knows you like he knows the back of his hand is stepping off this ship, leaving McCoy to pick up the pieces.” She barely takes a breath before continuing. “And by pieces, we mean the mask you've been wearing ever since—”

 

He expects her to say ever since McCoy arrived, but she doesn’t.

 

“-—you were poisoned.” She turns her body so she’s facing him square on, partially hiding McCoy and Spock behind her. “But you’d never let something like that get the best of you.”

 

He doesn’t know what to say. He sighs, rubbing his face. “I'm not sure I understand your implication, Lieutenant.”

 

“Whatever you’re dealing with, it has nothing to do with the murder attempt, does it?”

 

He glances at the beaming platform, which will transport the bane of his existence onto his ship, by tomorrow, far too soon.

 

“Maybe.”

 

She lets go of his arm and folds her arms, and the image of McCoy, with the same look on his face and the same stance earlier that day, flashes through his mind.

 

“I don’t believe you,” she counters.

 

“Okay. Fine. You’re right,” he lies, putting on the best ‘you win’ expression that he possibly can. “It doesn’t.”

 

“You’re still not sleeping, are you?”

 

He wishes that was the only problem he had. “No, but it’ll get better. It always does.”

 

“Let Leonard help you if it’s too much,” she says.

 

He doesn’t ask her to clarify, already daydreaming about McCoy and the ways he could help. What he wouldn’t give for a full body massage. He knows from experience that he’d be so relaxed that he’d fall asleep like a baby. “I don’t take sleeping pills, Ny.”

 

Her brow arches elegantly. “Now I know you’re really off your game. You never call me Ny in front of Spock. In fact, I’m not sure you have ever called me that, other than when you’re flirting with me.”

 

He flushes. Unfortunately, at the same time both Spock and McCoy walk towards them from the doorway.

 

“Are you ill, Captain?” Spock asks with obvious concern, his hands clasped behind his back in his usual, calm manner. “Your cheeks are abnormally pink.”

 

“Pink?” McCoy’s eyes narrow on Jim’s face. “They’re red.”

 

“It's adorable, Captain,” Uhura teases.

 

He can feel his blush deepen, if that was even possible, and wonders if he’s as red as the apple he just ate. He wouldn't be surprised if he is. He remembers his brother, Sam, blushing a rich crimson every time someone teased him about the neighbor girl, Aurelean.

 

As if Spock calling him out and McCoy observing him with those calculating eyes isn't enough, Uhura has to bring attention to him, too. It's impossible not to feel somewhat embarrassed when everyone in the room is staring at him, including Mr. Scott at the console, wondering if he’s well.

 

“I may be a bit overheated,” he complains, tugging at the collar of his uniform. It’s a weak excuse, because all of them are wearing the same long-sleeved uniforms, and he’s the only one visibly sweating.

 

“Once I leave, you should consider a cold shower, Captain,” Spock offers. “I recall you saying that it does wonders when one is...aroused.”

 

Jim blinks once. Had he really said what he thought he’d said? Aroused? No. He couldn’t have.

 

Right?

 

“A curious observation,” Spock muses faintly to himself.

 

Is this even real? “Spock,” he sputters. “I did not...that’s not…”

 

His first officer nods. “Yes, I believe you did.”

 

“Did not.” Jim glares at him, hoping he looks mad enough to make him pull a hasty retreat.

 

But Spock just continues, damn him. “—every day after McCoy’s arrival—”

 

Oh, God, _no_. “No, I didn’t, Spo—”

 

He begs that the powers of the universe to blow him away, right then and there.

 

Spock’s eyes fill with smug authority. “Captain, if I may remind you, you did say—”

 

His ears are hot, his face heating until he can hardly breathe. “Not even once,” he counters through gritted teeth.

 

Spock looks genuinely concerned. “At least three times.”

 

“Not. Even. Once. Or thrice,” he emphasizes, the last word a choice that has to impress the Vulcan.

 

(And help to silence him.)

 

Spock pauses, a contemplative expression, and Jim fills with hope.

 

 _Finally_.

 

“Very well,” the commander says, peering down his nose at him. “Four times. Four cold showers.”

 

He kneads his temple with one hand, digging in with force. “Kill me now,” he whispers.

 

McCoy coughs, with a forced sound that resembles a smothered laugh.

 

He can’t even look his way now. Or Uhura’s. Or...to hell with his life. What has gotten into Spock?

 

Spock sighs, then opens his mouth to speak, Jim groaning aloud as the first officer can't, for whatever reason, just drop the subject.

 

“I am curious, Captain,” Spock says, frowning, “To know if you have always enjoyed showers of lowered temperatures.”

 

“For the love of...I don’t take cold showers,” he all but yells, clenching his hands into fists at his side. “I don’t even shower! I don’t bathe. I don't even use the refresher. I’m a goddamn filthy captain!”

 

Silence hits the room.

 

His chest heaves as he considers his childlike outburst that resembles a tantrum rather than a captainly rebuttal.

 

He thinks he may have crossed a line. Shocked them straight out of their caring—

 

 _Christ_.

 

He face-palms himself. This proves that he is, indeed, a moron above all morons, especially when it comes to a certain young doctor who has the world ahead of him—and a perfectly bright future—and _Jim wants to see just that._

 

To be a part of it. To experience every step of the way with him.

 

(Who wouldn't? Leonard McCoy, twenty years of age, was absolutely remarkable.)

 

But they, even Mr.-he-forgot-he-was-there-Scott, are gaping at him.

 

“For fu—.” He runs both hands through his hair. “Listen,” he huffs. “I didn’t mean...agh, forget it. Forget I said anything.”

 

Spock opens his mouth, clamps it shut, then opens it again. “My apologizes. I must be mistaken.”

 

“You’re damn right you are,” Jim mutters under his breath. Then, louder, “And for the tenth time, Spock, don’t ever mention my non-existent cold shower habits. Ever. Again.”

 

“Of course, sir.” He pauses. “Even if it is true.”

 

He groans, never before as exasperated with Spock as he is now. “Spock.”

 

McCoy coughs for a second time, head down as if to spare Jim the humiliation of knowing that he knows he has a thing for him. Or, at the very least, thinks he’s a ridiculous (and horny) captain.

 

(Why him. Why _him_?)

 

Uhura glances at McCoy, who is clearly fighting even more laughter, before looking straight at Jim with a wince.

 

“Ny,” Jim says in a warning tone. He knows that look.

 

“He was stressed,” she admits. “He had chocolate.”

 

Fuck his life. This was his— _Jim’s_ —fault. “Did you put him up to this?” he demands of Uhura.

 

“If I tell you yes, will you take a cold shower?” she replies, all innocence except Jim knows that she has it in for him, too.

 

He shakes his finger at her. “Don’t go there, Lieutenant.”

 

She firms her mouth. “I tried to stop him, but he wasn’t thinking logically. It was actually too late for me to do much, other than put away the small part he hadn’t eaten. M’Benga gave him something to counteract the chocolate’s effects. It should kick in soon.”

 

He’d thought Spock was handling the news of his father better than this. They’d all thought so.

 

He’s certain he’s been too caught up in his own woes to realize the opposite was true. The thought fills him with unease, and doubt, over his own capabilities.

 

“I’m sorry, Ny,” he says, with a shake of his head.

 

“It’s not your fault,” she murmurs.

 

He can’t say that he agrees.

 

“Captain, you look unwell,” Spock says, apparently stuck on the former conversation.

 

He feels the sting of emotion at the back of his eyes. How could he have been so caught up in himself? “Yeah,” he says roughly, his throat constricting. “I am.”

 

Sick to his stomach with absolute mortification.

 

Spock doesn’t—isn’t capable—of letting this go. “You will have an examination?”

 

He looks helplessly at Nyota. “Should you even send him there like this?”

 

“He has a chaperone, his half-brother, waiting for him,” she says. “I contacted them before we left his quarters.”

 

“Captain—”

 

McCoy clears his throat. “Yes, Spock, I will insist the captain sees me in the medbay after your departure. To check on his...fever.”

 

Spock blinks. “Yes, I agree he should see you.”

 

Jim straightens his shoulders, ignoring the doctor’s steady gaze, the laughter in his voice that is directed at him, of course. The hell he’s going to sickbay after this lovely interaction. “Spock, I can’t believe I’m saying this, especially now, but the truth is, I’m going to miss you.”

 

Spock blinks again. “I will return soon, Captain.”

 

He sobers quickly. “In all seriousness, I hope that is the case.”

 

Spock looks slightly green. “My father will be well.”

 

He feels a pang of sympathy through his chest. “And you?”

 

“I regret…” Spock swallows. “I am…I am...I will be fine, as always.”

 

“If there’s anything you need,” he says, “let us know.”

 

Spock nods, then steps onto the beaming platform. His eyes are probing as he watches Jim, but in silence, as if waiting for him to speak the truth, as if he suspects something else is wrong.

 

But after another brief pause, Spock looks more like himself. “And you?”

 

He swallows down his concern with Mitchell’s inevitable arrival, the worry over his own poor sleeping habits and anything else that could hinder his command, determined not to spill any of his dirty secrets at the wrong time. He’d hate himself if Spock is delayed because of him. “I’m good. Take care, Spock.”

 

Spock raises his hand, fingers parted in the Vulcan salute. “Live long and prosper, Jim.”

 

“Mr. Scott,” Jim says, an unexpected wave of emotion washing over him. Emotion—and a fear that the next time they see each other, neither will be the same. “Energize,” he says softly.

 

When Spock disappears from the pad, Jim realizes that his companions have already left, and he takes a moment to absorb the somberness of the moment.

 

He's grateful for the privacy, and uses it to pull himself together. Spock’s request that he visit Medbay for an examination is ignored. But he's still going to have to find the courage to drop in at some point today and pick up the sleeping medication.

 

They eat lunch together the next day, which isn't as awkward as he anticipated. While McCoy is no doubt counting how many bites he takes and noticing the new, dark circles under his eyes, new camaraderie is blossoming between them, nonetheless. The relaxed interlude lasts until he is called to the transporter room.

 

This time, to receive an officer.

 

He goes alone, not wanting to risk anyone picking up on the tension he feels creeping up into his shoulders.

 

And when First Officer Gary Mitchell, a man as handsome as he remembers, maybe even more so, with distinguished streaks of gray through his hair and a gaze that is sharp, missing nothing, steps onto his ship not twenty-four hours later, he jolts back to reality. To _this_ reality.

 

He’ll have to rely on his instincts and be on his guard for two long and lonely months for him to come out of this unscathed and unaffected.

 

“Commander,” Jim says, proud that his voice doesn’t waver, bend, or crack.

 

Gary flashes a smile full of white, perfect teeth and a confidence that almost throws him. “Jim.”

 

He doesn’t correct him, nor does he look away.

 

He can’t. His ex’s eyes, a murky brown, something that he doesn't remember, ensnare him.

 

“Permission to come aboard?” Gary asks, his gaze sweeping over him.

 

He finds his voice, though Gary’s blatant perusal of his body is unsettling and intrusive and welcome all at the same time and he doesn't know why, and though a lump has lodged itself uncomfortably in his throat to stay.

 

“Permission granted,” he replies, against the persistent gut feeling in the pit of his stomach that says he should deny him.

 

Gary’s smile widens, his shoulders thrown back in perfect posture as he steps off of the platform and into Jim’s personal space like it's the most natural thing in the world. “ _Captain_ , it’s been a long, long time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *cues ominous music*
> 
> I took liberties with Vulcan physiology and history of disease/illnesses, as well as with Gary Mitchell's character. Actually, with just about everything. LOL. I'm hoping that you have many questions after reading this chapter - about Jim, Gary and even McCoy - because it means that I did my job right. :)
> 
> I am thinking of adjusting Jim's age on this one, adding a few years to his 28, if it goes along with my adjusted plot. So keep that in mind, and stay tuned for that minute change in the future.
> 
>  
> 
> It was a little challenging getting back in the saddle, so to speak, with writing, so I will most definitely appreciate any and all kudos and reviews! ) One side note. I bet many of you watched ST: Discovery tonight! Lucky you! If you did, kindly don't mention a single spoiler. ;) I'm going to wait to watch the premier and subsequent episodes at a much later date so I don't get any plot bunnies that will interrupt what WIPs I'm working on now. 
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I've seriously missed you all so very much! XX


	3. 2.2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone stirs the pot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've never included a chapter summary before, but I figured it would be fun to make this one a bit ominous. ;) After all...Mitchell is on the Enterprise and we all know how much good that will be!
> 
> Many sincere thanks to Diamondblue4 and her second pair of eyes! :)
> 
> Hope you all enjoy this one! I had a lot of fun writing it even though I keep torturing poor Jim. This chapter takes place some time after the last, about eight weeks. Also, I did change Jim's age so that he's ten years older than McCoy now, but have yet to alter it in previous chapters.
> 
> WARNING: I should've said something earlier about this, but will take the time now to point out that although there is absolutely NO non-con in this fic, there may be suggested non or dub-con in regards to other things.

***

 

2.2

 

***

 

He first notices it after he drags himself out of bed, when, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he looks in the mirror before he dresses, and puts on his anti-beard cream.

 

There is mottled mark on the right side of his neck, near the base. A skin blemish that hadn’t been there when he went to sleep, one that sticks out like a sore thumb.

 

He turns sideways, craning his neck to get a better look at it, and gets an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. “Dammit,” he whispers, gently touching it with his fingers.

 

The bruise will be difficult to cover up at the gym. Especially with those teeth marks. He’ll have to skip his routine today. Maybe even for the rest of the week. But if he hits the pool early enough in the morning, maybe starting tomorrow, he'll likely be able to use the smallest pool alone, without running the risk of others noticing it.

 

He inspects it for another moment, willing it to disappear. He never would have invited someone into his room for a tryst. He would have denied entry to anyone who’d been looking for one.

 

(Unless it had been McCoy.)

 

But, he remembers a voice in his ear, soft fingers caressing his shoulder, and blonde hair falling across his face. Hair that is usually pinned up in a perfect coif.

 

His stomach sinks.

 

Nurse Chapel?

 

Just terrific.

 

 

***

 

McCoy stands by the doors inside sickbay, signing off on forms on his PADD when someone enters.

 

He glances up to see Christine stopped in her tracks and staring at nothing, a strange look on her face.

 

“Something wrong?” he asks.

 

She blinks several times. “I...I don’t know.” She draws a breath and glances sideways at him. “How well do you know the captain?”

 

He immediately straightens, considering the months they’ve endured a tenuous relationship with one another that has finally became a friendship that they both—he hopes—enjoy. “Long enough to be concerned if this involves him.”

 

“He asked me something just now, about whether I’d been to his quarters last night, and if we had...” Her voice fades into nothing and she flushes. “Never mind...I...I’ve said too much. This is...this is too personal to discuss.”

 

Her response, what she is insinuating, doesn’t sit well with him. However, he’s professional enough to separate the jealousy—if what she’s implying is true—from his concern as Jim’s physician, if it isn’t true. “If he’s in any way confused—”

 

“No,” she interjects, her eyes sharpening with her normal confidence. “He’s fine, surprisingly sober, and trying to adjust to all of the changes around here.”

 

“I see.” He’s still not mollified—in fact he's put off by her offhand remark that insinuates Kirk had been drinking too much last night, when he has an early shift today—and scowls.

 

She places her hand on his arm, patting it gently. He tamps down the thought that she’s acting somewhat condescendingly. “Really, Dr. McCoy. I think he might have had a disturbing dream about me. That’s all. And we all know how much he cares for his crew.”

 

It is more logical to believe that Jim had another of his nightmares. He sighs. “If there’s anything that warrants my involvement, please let me know, Nurse Chapel,” he says, looking at her directly. “As CMO,” he emphasizes. Chapel drops her hand, the pink in her cheeks deepening. “I insist, or there will be consequences for withholding that information.”

 

“Of course, sir.”

 

“I expect the same from everyone under my direction,” he continues. “Is that understood?”

 

She nods. “Yes, Dr. McCoy,” she replies, then hesitates.

 

McCoy stares back down at his PADD, counting the minutes before he must perform his second surgery of the day. Thankfully, he has just enough time to check on Jim. “Yes, Nurse Chapel?”

 

“You do know that it’s the captain's birthday tomorrow?” she murmurs, just as two other nurses walk past them. “It’s usually not very pleasant for him. And now with Dr. Boyce gone, and Spock, too…”

 

Oh. His heart squeezes and it takes him a moment to understand why. It is the Kelvin Remembrance Day, as well. The day Jim’s father had died.

 

“I didn’t know,” he says politely. “Thank you for telling me.”

 

“Of course.” She hurries away, no doubt glad to be away from his suddenly cool professionalism.

 

Yet inside, his emotions are a torrent, warring with each other.

 

The captain may want to be left alone tomorrow, but given the circumstances, the changes that Chapel had referred to, it might not be the best thing. He makes the decision not to ignore what the day really is—a remembrance not only of what Jim lost but also of what the captain, and others, had gained. Hope. Life. A memory of a hero in their hearts.

 

He decides to do what he must, what has started to become naturally to him.

 

To be as caring and understanding a friend to Kirk that he possibly can.

 

 

***

 

Jim grins at the holovid screen. He can’t wait to tell Scotty, who’d called it before he had. “So what you’re telling me, Spock, is that you want to get married?”

 

His first officer opens his mouth to speak, but Jim hurries on, scooting to the edge of his seat.

 

“That’s awesome,” he says, grinning even wider. “This is the best day-before-my-birthday present ever. And I should know, since my birthdays usually sucks. Well, anything on my birthday sucks, except for this news.”

 

Spock gives him ‘the look,’ reminding Jim that though the commander may be off his ship, he’s never really off duty from pointing out when the captain sticks his foot in his mouth.

 

(For some time now he’s thought that he should actually thank Spock for being so honest. Mitchell, on the other hand, was a bit obscure for his tastes.)

 

“Captain—”

 

“I mean,” Jim interrupts, thinking he should clarify. “Yes. Of course I’ll do it. I'll marry you. Thought you’d never ask.”

 

Spock snaps shuts his mouth. His eyes fill with horror.

 

Well, with what looks to be horror for a Vulcan. More like an Olympic-winning arch of the eyebrows, a no-less daring downward twitch of the mouth.

 

He frowns back. “Did I say something wrong?”

 

Spock looks greener than usual. “Captain, while I do believe you would be a worthy mate, I intend to marry Nyota.”

 

Of course he knows that. “What I meant was that I thought you’d never ask Nyota. It’s been, what? Seven years now? If you include the academy years? Geeze, Spock, don’t worry. I don’t want to marry you either,” he rambles on, blushing as an afterthought when the thought of saying actual wedding vows to Spock…a disgruntled, maybe even jealous, doctor watching with the other guests…. He quickly shakes his head. No, not going there. “Although, you’d be a great catch. Nyota wants to marry you. At least, I think she does.”

 

Spock sighs.

 

Jim doesn’t hear anything but a man in love. “Hopefully,” he offers.

 

“Indeed. You are not helping the situation, captain.”

 

“There’s a situation?” The hell there is. Everything sounds perfect. “Your father is doing well, and you want us to bring Nyota so you can get hitched the Vulcan way.”

 

“Captain…”

 

“And then I'll marry you,” he announces. “Though I feel like second best, to be honest, since you’re getting Vulcan married first.” He stops. “Am I missing something?”

 

Spock hesitates. “Negative.”

 

“I don’t believe you.”

 

(Jim peers at Spock more closely, trying to understand why his mouth was twitching in a damn near smile—no—laugh.)

 

“Vulcans do not lie.”

 

“Bullshit.” He crosses his arms, after he puts his coffee mug down, which is after he spills some of it on himself first, of course.

 

“Affirmative.”

 

“Ha!” He points and shakes his finger at him. “I knew it. Like the other day, when I discovered my chocolate stash from Risa was missing. That was you.” Then he adds, muttering absently, “But at least that explains the transporter incident.”

 

“Which I do regret.”

 

“Pshaw, don’t sweat it. We’ve forgotten all about it,” he has to affirm for Spock’s sake.

 

(Except that it’s a complete, unadulterated lie.)

 

(He thinks about it every time McCoy walks in the room.)

 

(Spock’s comments about his sexual, er, attraction to the doctor give him nightmares. Perhaps for the rest of his sorry, regretful life.)

 

“I am gratified, Captain,” Spock says. “However, if I admit to my guilt, how will you know with absolute certainty that I am telling the truth, if you so doubt me?” He cocks his head, and Jim peers back at him, his first officer who still seems a little unhinged, if you ask him. “How will you believe a word I say, including when I remind you that I am already betrothed to the Lieutenant, which means she has already agreed to become my mate?”

 

So he was the last to know.

 

“How can you know for sure?” he counters.

 

(How can he be sure that if he makes a move, McCoy won’t run for the hills?)

 

“You are my closest friend, Jim.” Spock’s gaze doesn’t waver. “That I do know.”

 

A non sequitur. It figures Spock would do that.

 

Jim waits a beat before groaning. “Am I making a fool of myself again?”

 

(God, when did he become so needy?)

 

Spock answers without moving a muscle. “Perhaps.”

 

“You know I trust you, right?”

 

“Perhaps.” Spock’s eyes are now twinkling. “But you forget there is another on the ship that you should trust.”

 

He groans louder and puts his face in his hands. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, Spock. Half the time I don’t even know what I’m saying.”

 

“This is occurring more often than usual?”

 

He lifts his head and glares at him. “What do you mean, more often than usual?” He shakes his head, squirming in his seat under the Vulcan stare. “Wait, don’t answer that.”

 

“Very well.”

 

“Wait, please answer that,” he says, sitting up straighter. “Explain yourself, Commander.”

 

“I believe your...strange...behavior reached its peak before my departure.”

 

He deflates, sighing. “Never mind. It’s not important.”

 

“Captain.”

 

He blinks and stares at Spock. “Um, sorry?”

 

Spock’s expression is oddly strained. “Explain.”

 

He looks at him confusedly. “Explain...what?”

 

“You have not heard all that I have said.” Spock clasps his hands and rests them on the desk, leaning forward with so much renewed interest that Jim leans back in his own chair as much as possible. He shifts his body so that the right side of his neck doesn’t show.

 

For a reason he can’t quite explain, he doesn’t want anyone looking at him too closely. Not even Spock, and especially not McCoy.

 

Mitchell has made him nervous enough as it is. And not because he's done anything wrong. Quite the opposite. He's been an amazing first officer. And that is exactly what scares him.

 

Even at Mitchell’s best, in the academy, he’d never been this respectful—or respectable. And when Gary had been respectful to Jim, it had been to make up for whatever he’d done wrong to him.

 

Of course, Jim hadn’t the sense he had now and had allowed himself to fall for it every single time.

 

But the man with the room next to his hasn’t done anything to warrant concern. In fact, they’ve worked together well, and Gary had even wished him a good evening before they parted ways after their shift.

 

“Haven’t I?” Jim asks. “I think I heard pretty much all of it. Your dad’s well now, which is fantastic, by the way. And you want the Enterprise to swing by New Vulcan so you can get hitched, but you want me to perform an extra ceremony, to appease Nyota’s step-father.”

 

“Affirmative. Captain...I will need to speak with Dr. McCoy,” Spock says.

 

It is an odd request, but everyone has wanted to speak with the young, hot, still single doc—

 

“Oh.” Jim clears his throat. “About...me?”

 

Spock nods.

 

Jim sighs, resigned. Again. “He’s coming here in about five minutes.”

 

Spock’s smug expression is too pleased, like a bird who caught the canary, and he blurts out. “God, Spock, what am I going to do? He’s here for cards and drinks. His are nonalcoholic, of course.”

 

His, too.

 

(Okay, so they’re going to drink Mrs. McCoy’s famous sweet tea for the heck of it, since Chapel had rounded up the right herbs the last time they’d been on shore leave, and Jim thinks McCoy is homesick like nobody’s business. The doctor hides it well, but it’s all in the drawl and the anecdotes he loves to tell.)

 

Spock hums. “And you invited him?”

 

Jim scratches his head. He wishes he had.

 

Or maybe he _had_.

 

“Captain?”

 

And there it is.

 

He can’t remember.

 

Just like with Chapel—or whoever had been in his quarters—he can’t fucking remember.

 

Why can’t he remember? Had he asked McCoy yesterday? Or had McCoy asked him today? Was this a date, or something to pass the time with as friends?

 

Of course, this can’t be a date. He’s not such an imbecile captain as to actually think that it came even close. They hardly know each other.

 

(He feels like they’ve known each other forever.)

 

He presses the heels of his hands into his eyes, a sense of deja vu washing over him, stronger than he’s ever felt before. “I don’t know, Spock,” he hoarsely.

 

Spock inhales sharply. “I am concerned.”

 

So is he.

 

He thinks it isn’t the first time this has happened, blind spots in his memory that seem beyond his control. Maybe even words put into his mouth—and words left out. But to admit it, means that he’s going crazy.

 

“Jim,” Spock says, the firmness in his voice startling Jim. “You are not yourself.”

 

Jim drops his hands, defensive. He’s commanding his ship just fine, and he’s sleeping better, too, which is a miracle. Maybe he is worrying over nothing about Mitchell. “Well, I—”

 

“I must speak with the doctor as soon as he arrives.”

 

“McCoy? Yeah, he’s coming.” He frowns. “Didn’t I tell you that?”

 

“Your visitor has arrived,” Jim’s computer conveniently interrupted, the computerized, female voice filling his room.

 

“Oh, wait. I think he’s here early.” Jim sprang to his feet. “McCoy’s punctual like that. I’ll let him in and you two can just...chat.”

 

“Alone.”

 

It is Jim’s turn to launch a brow. “Oh? Not sure that will fly with Nyota.”

 

“I can assure you that there will be no flying involved. Fists, perhaps.”

 

Jim snorts, then quickly sobers. “I miss you, you know.”

 

“A fact for which I am grateful, but I will speak with Leonard.”

 

He stares at Spock in disbelief. “Leonard? You’re on a first name basis with him?”

 

“Technically, you are as well,” Spock points out. “But you choose not to in order to distance yourself from the attraction you feel for him.”

 

He flushes. No one has called him on that yet. Figures it would be Spock to be the first one to notice. “Gotta do something about it.”

 

“A relationship between a Lieutenant Commander and a captain is not disallowed, Jim.”

 

He ruefully glances down at the screen, noting the way Spock had smoothly started calling him by his first name, too, and in the middle of their conversation. “But it won’t make my life any easier, or do anything but worsen my reputation. He’s ten years younger than I am.”

 

“You have told me yourself that you do not intend to always be single.”

 

He shifts on his feet, uncomfortable. “That was when I had no one.”

 

And when he thought he’d live his life alone.

 

Spock nods once. “Fate has called your bluff.”

 

He rolls his eyes. “No one’s bluffing. I just didn’t think...I’d be capable of...lov—”

 

He clamps his mouth shut and stares, wide-eyed at him.

 

Oh...crap. “Shit.”

 

“Indeed.”

 

“Shit, shit, shit,” he whispers.

 

The chiming at the door continues, keeping up with the pitter-patter of his heart.

 

His chest tightens. “Spock, you didn't hear that.”

 

“I did, indeed, hear the word ‘love,’ Jim. Your computer is in working order.”

 

He huffs and spins on his heel. “Not the chime, I mean….me and my big mouth. I’ll just let him in and you—” He spins back around and points his finger at him again. “Not a word.”

 

Spock’s eyes soften, and Jim is reminded why he loves him so much, like a brother. That other than Pike, he’d been the first one to care about him, despite his faults. “I would not dream of it, Jim.”

 

***

 

Not fifteen minutes later, Jim is setting two full glasses of tea on his table when McCoy emerges from his bedroom. He's selfishly glad that McCoy’s conversation with Spock didn't last long.

 

“Well, that was a riot,” McCoy drawls, some of the liquid sloshing over Jim’s hands when the doctor slips up behind him.

 

“It wasn’t your ears that were burning,” he mutters, throwing him a dark look that the doctor doesn’t even see.

 

McCoy sits down, his eyes on the cool refreshment. “He cares.”

 

Jim firms his jaw, feeling less than hospitable. “So, what you discussed—”

 

“You’re not crazy, Jim,” McCoy says quietly. “There could be a variety of factors playing into this. I’ll keep an eye on ya, that’s all.”

 

“Right,” he mutters.

 

He gulps down a rather large, painful amount of sweet tea. Factors meaning Spock’s absence, Boyce’s resignation, and Mitchell’s...oddly normal behavior. But if he can't handle these things, he's not going to be able to retain his command.

 

“But you’ve got the most comfortable bed on board the ship, Jim,” McCoy adds, his tone considerably lighter.

 

His face heats just thinking of how the doctor knows that piece of information—he’d actually sat on Jim’s bed.

 

(He knows that’s all he’ll think about when he’s trying to going to sleep. The once-warm, now empty place on his bed, where McCoy had been.)

 

He clears his throat to quell the nerves making it hard to breathe normally. “Is that...is that so?”

 

The younger man just lifts a brow. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of, medically speaking. In fact, I’m glad you have that comfort. You suffer from insomnia more than anyone else on this ship, Jim.”

 

He frowns. “I do?”

 

The kid shrugs.

 

(Must. Think. Of. Him. As. A. Kid.)

 

“Quite frankly, yes.”

 

His frown deepens. “There are a lot of my crew who are...insomniacs?”

 

“No more than any other starship,” the kid says patiently. “It’s more common than you think, and dependent upon both the duration of the mission and how strenuous their assignments are. It is easily treatable, in most cases.”

 

“Anything I can do to help?” he asks with genuine concern.

 

“Well, I knew one captain who insisted on regular ship-wide games for crew morale. Another who enforced participation in a talent show, the arts…” the doctor shrugs. “It might be something to think about, if you’ve never done anything like that before. But don’t forget, seeing _you_ happy will do wonders for your crew.”

 

Jim cocks his head and stares at him. “For being twenty, you make a lot of sense.”

 

“I’m an old soul, I guess,” the kid—no, _man_ —says, sipping on his tea.

 

Jim has to agree. “Thank you.”

 

“So, Mitchell…”

 

“What about him?”

 

“He seems pretty amiable, surprisingly. He hasn’t argued with you once,” McCoy says, setting down his glass.

 

“You expected him to?”

 

“He’s older than you, has been a first officer longer than you’ve been captain.”

 

He grins a little. “I thought things like that didn’t matter much to you, being so young and all and a doctor.”

 

McCoy scowls, shadows falling over his young face. “Boyce said he knew you.”

 

“That all he said?” Jim asks carefully.

 

“But you parted ways?”

 

Jim takes a steadying breath. Maybe McCoy doesn't know much about his past with Gary, after all. “Not on the best of terms. He was a little pushy as a friend. He graduated before I did. But, I think he’s matured, finally.”

 

“He’s a good first officer, then,” McCoy says, eyes searching.

 

Jim is touched that McCoy is concerned, but he can’t allow him to be too interested and says nothing of his own wariness. “He’s good, but not as good as Spock,” he says loyally.

 

“Speaking of Spock...they’re really tying the knot?”

 

“We’ll arrive at New Vulcan in two weeks.” Jim nods, lifting his glass to his lips. Something falls on his other hand, and Jim, thinking he’d foolishly missed his mouth, looks down.

 

His hand is covered in blood.

 

“What the hell, Jim?” McCoy says in surprise, jumping out of this seat before Jim can register what is happening and set down his glass.

 

He automatically tips his head back, feeling the blood gush from his nostrils. He tries to talk but decides against it when he winces, the metallic taste in his mouth revolting.

 

“Here give me that.” McCoy snatches the glass from his hand and sets it down, then pulls Jim’s free hand up to the bridge his nose. “Pinch here, while I grab a towel.”

 

Jim stands, but is forced to close his eyes against a wave of dizziness. “Bathroom,” he grunts. “I’ll’careof it,” he garbles out.

 

He isn’t an invalid. Besides, he is making a mess out here.

 

“You’ll do no such thing. Come on,” McCoy says, and guides him by the elbow.

 

He shuffles, relieved when they’re sequestered in the narrow bathroom and he can lean over the sink, staring in morbid fascination at the colorful drops staining it. McCoy finds a towel in the cupboard and huffs a sigh beside him.

 

“Stop that,” the doctor orders, and grabs his hand to pull it up again. “Have you no sense?”

 

“Gna,” he protests.

 

Dizzy again, he tries to brace himself with his other hand but his wet hand slips on the counter.

 

Off-balance, with no friction, he overcompensates and falls backwards into McCoy’s arms. “Oof!”

 

His breath is stolen from him upon impact.

 

“I gotcha,” McCoy says.

 

He stares up at the younger man’s face, and the beautiful, hazel eyes that are staring down at him, wide and glassy and stricken and fathomless.

 

Neither of them budges.

 

“Well, ‘is awkward,” he manages.

 

McCoy’s lips thin, and before he knows it he’s on the floor, with his back pressed up against the doctor’s chest, the warmth of the other man seeping into his skin.

 

And McCoy’s arms are around him, one hand holding the small towel up to his nose. “Just remain still.”

 

McCoy’s lashes are dark against his skin, and Jim cannot help but look up at him while he’s conveniently in the doctor’s arms, and feeling altogether vulnerable.

 

“Jim,” the doctor says after a moment, his voice rough.

 

There’s a pause, as they stare at each other, as Jim is afraid to break the mesmerizing moment.

 

(This is it. It has to be.)

 

McCoy adjusts his hold on the towel.

 

The doctor licks his lips. “Jim,” he rasps again.

 

“Yeah?” Jim says, looking at McCoy’s now moistened lips.

 

(Wanting them, the feel of them on his mouth, on his neck, trailing kisses down his chest.)

 

“I…” McCoy’s head lowers.

 

Jim lifts his chin, his lips parting in expectation. His heart beats erratically, so fast that he doesn’t think he will ever catch up to it. This is wrong, but so right, and, Jim sees only McCoy—fuck his age—and his mouth and his mark on him and he closes his eyes, ready—

 

“Holy shit!”

 

Jim jerks away at the sound of Gary’s obnoxiously loud voice, McCoy doing likewise.

 

But while the doctor is graceful pulling away from him, he flails about in embarrassment.

 

Jim hits his head on the nearby wall with a clunk. “Fuck, ow, Gary!” He immediately cradles his aching head.

 

“Did I just interrupt a private moment?” Gary guffaws.

 

“No,” McCoy says quickly.

 

“Nosebleed,” Jim explains simultaneously, only it sounds like he's got a mouthful of peanut butter.

 

Gary makes a noncommittal noise, indicating his disbelief. (Jim will no doubt have to do some damage control later after McCoy’s gone.) “Right.”

 

(How the hell is he going to keep Gary quiet about this? Not that there was a “this” in the first place.)

 

“Do you always barge in like that?” McCoy says evenly, slipping his arm around Jim and aiding him to his feet.

 

“It is my bathroom, too,” the intruding bastard points out.

 

McCoy’s arms tighten around Jim. “Maybe you should knock next time.”

 

Gary sneers at them both, a slip that reveals a little of the old Gary with whom Jim is most familiar. “Will there be a next time?”

 

“Hopefully not. One nosebleed is sufficient.” McCoy looks at Gary angrily, and Jim has to look away from the sight, for it is the first time anyone has ever defended him when it comes to Gary. And he has an ache in his chest because of it.

 

Gary quirks a smug brow. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” McCoy denies.

 

Jim thinks that McCoy’s brave even when it’s obvious that he’s lying.

 

“If you say so,” Gary replies. He begins to whistle an unfamiliar tune, backing out of the bathroom and into his room, flashing one last grin at him. “Cradle robber, I mean _Jim_ , see you tomorrow.”

 

He throws him a glare as the door slides shut.

 

“You gonna just let him talk to you like that?” McCoy says softly.

 

“Gary’s...Gary,” he explains, not meeting his eyes. “It's no big deal. We’re not even on duty.”

 

“All that may be true, but with all due respect, Captain, I'm not sure that I like it.”

 

“Noted.”

 

He doesn’t speak again to McCoy as he tends to his nose with stiff movements, staunching the blood flow within a few minutes. He remains silent even after the doctor administers the sedative he'd requested from medical.

 

The tension between them is thick. Or maybe it's just him. McCoy doesn't seem to be affected by what had just transpired between them, nor by his curt reply.

 

“Sleep well, Captain. You need it,” is all McCoy says to him before he leaves.

 

He's disappointed, if he's honest with himself. If he's even more honest, he's frustrated that he cares for McCoy like he does.

 

Jim throws himself on his bed, fully-clothed, and stares up at the ceiling with his hands clasped at his chest and an aching member straining against the front of his jeans.

 

Sleep seemed light-years away, despite the sedative. Damn right he needed it. Anything to forget the fiasco that had just happened.

 

That close to kissing McCoy, that damn close, and Gary Fucking Mitchell had ruined it.

 

***

 

McCoy bangs his head against the corridor wall next to the door of his quarters, not giving a damn about the ensigns who are approaching down the corridor. He should have never tried to kiss the captain. He’d known better than to do something like that. Maybe it was their saving grace that Gary had walked in when he did.

 

At least Jim won't be lying when he says nothing happened and nothing is happening between them.

 

He’ll have to try harder to refrain from flirting with Jim, curb the looks he finds himself giving the captain when Jim isn’t looking.

 

But he can handle it. He has to. Only two more weeks of enduring Mitchell’s suspicion and then things can go back to normal. Well, as normal as they can be on Kirk’s Silver Lady.

 

He tightens his hands into fists and gives a self-deprecating laugh.

 

When he’d volunteered for the mission on Pant’igna at the age of eighteen, he never dreamed his life would ever come to this.

 

Pant’igna seems like eons ago.

 

_Cradle robber._

 

But his life had come to this, and he has to make the best of it.

 

He breathes out a slow breath, remembering, very clearly, the longing in Jim’s eyes.

 

There’s no way he can make the best of anything, not when he simply adores everything about the captain, even the way he makes his blood boil. He's never felt this in love with anyone, not even with his own fiancé.

 

“Dammit, Jim,” he whispers, and enters his quarters with his name warm on his lips.

 

He’ll have to check on Jim tomorrow and talk to him about the nosebleed. If he can find him.

 

He has a feeling that Kirk will do everything in his power to avoid him like the plague.

 

***

 

Somehow Jim manages to get through his shift the next day, with not only Remembrance Day on his mind as well as his birthday, but the thought of Gary having this as potential leverage against him, too. When he’d spoken to Mitchell this morning in the bridge, the commander had responded appropriately, like the compromising situation he’d found Jim in with McCoy last night hadn’t been a big deal. But Gary had perfected that innocent look long ago.

 

And Jim, despite his experience and bravado, feels out of practice deciphering it.

 

“I figured I’d find you in here.”

 

Jim glances up from his shot glass just in time to watch the man of his dreams, literally, saunter up to the bar. Given that the doctor is underage—and he’s not sure that he can look him in the eye after their mishap—Jim is instantly drawn to the bottle of whiskey in his hand.

 

He lifts his head to catch the smile he thinks he hears in his voice.

 

The doctor wags his eyebrows like a mad dog and holds up the bottle, as if last night had never happened.

 

(And who knows? Given Jim’s recent moments of insanity and thinking of things that might have happened, maybe it didn’t.)

 

“Found this in Chekov’s locker,” McCoy says smoothly, with more than just a hint of his southern roots shining through.

 

Jim braces himself against the beauty of that honeyed voice and frowns at him in mock disbelief. “Since when do you go looking around in other people’s things?”

 

McCoy shrugs. “CMO.”

 

Jim snorts. “I don’t go around snooping, and I’m the captain.”

 

“I have certain...privileges,” McCoy says.

 

What has gotten into McCoy? Jim scratches his nose, admittedly confused and buying time.

 

McCoy’s mouth quirks at the corner. “Bothers you, does it?”

 

Jim shrugs back. Shit, if McCoy doesn’t look smug.

 

McCoy removes the cork from the bottle, watching the liquid inside gently slosh, catching the light. “Like I said. Doctors have certain privileges.”

 

“Well, then, McCoy, tell me this. Why is an underaged CMO,” he emphasizes, giving him a long look, “pouring me a shot?”

 

McCoy pushes the now-filled shot glass toward him, then braces his arms on the countertop with both his hands. “It’s your birthday today, isn’t it?”

 

He stares down at his shot glass. He’d rather deny it. He's another year older than his father was when he’d died. “It is,” he mutters.

 

Boyce, if he’d been here, if he hadn’t given in to his yearning for his family on Terra, would have met him here, already.

 

But Boyce is gone—for good. He’d resigned from his position seven weeks ago, just days after Gary had arrived.

 

Jim is happy for Boyce. Truly. He can’t wish the CMO who’d served him so well any ill will for his decision.

 

But, Jim wishes Gary had also left weeks ago, although the transition hadn’t been as bad as he’d expected. However, that didn't mean that he likes the current status quo. He prefers his right-hand man and friend, Spock, over an ex-lover, ex-boyfriend…

 

Ex-abuser.

 

He tamps down a fresh sense of panic. He’s getting the feeling that maybe McCoy and Boyce had discussed him more than he’d wanted them to. His records, his real records, had varying classifications attached to them, but he won't have put it past Boyce to share with the new CMO most of the information contained in them.

 

He’s been with this crew long enough to know that they’d do anything to watch out for one another.

 

Hearing the musical chime of glass, he eyes the empty shot glass he’d gotten out to remember his father.

 

There’s another empty shot glass beside it now, the doctor’s strong, skilled fingers wrapped gently around it.

 

He looks up at McCoy in surprise.

 

“To your father,” McCoy says, raising his empty glass and inclining his head towards him. “George Kirk. And to you, a fine friend and captain.”

 

His emotions get the best of him and he dips his head before replying, in a hoarse whisper at best. “To George Kirk.”

 

McCoy quietly watches him as he downs his glass, the smooth burn of the whiskey a soothing heat in his chest.

 

He feels those eyes, probing him, as he stares out the viewfinder by the bar, watching the stars for another five minutes in quiet contemplation, relishing a private moment with another good man. A man he can’t possibly compromise, especially one at the beginning of his career.

 

For all of his wrong choices and indiscretions, he'd been raised better than that. But his mother hadn’t raised him. The memory of his father had. And George Kirk had wanted his sons to be honorable men.

 

“ _Captain.”_

 

Jim breaks from his reverie and opens his communicator to answer Uhura. “Yes, Lieutenant.”

 

“We’ve received a distress call from Spira III. They’ve experienced a severe earthquake of a magnitude of 7.1, sir, and several hundred children are trapped under debris that had been their school.”

 

If his memory serves him correctly, the humanoids on Spira are born solely in pairs and are about half the size of Terran humans, much more delicate, too. They will have difficulty removing debris without the proper equipment. “That's not far from us,” Jim murmurs, lifting his eyes to meet McCoy’s. “A few hours, max, if we push it. We’ll need as many from medical as you can spare on planet, McCoy.”

 

McCoy straightens. “I’ll inform my staff.” He inclines his head politely. “Captain.”

 

He watches the doctor exit the room, grateful that Boyce had sufficiently prepared him for dealing with such disasters. Still, this will be the first major incident since McCoy’s been on the ship. “Uhura?”

 

“Yes, sir?”

 

“Tell Mr. Sulu to take the swiftest route. Warp factor 7.”

 

***

 

Somehow, both Jim and his first officer ended up on planet.

 

When Mitchell crouches beside him to help remove several thick boards that had fallen on top of several children, Jim can’t help but be irritated. Of course Gary has to choose this mission to disobey him for the first time. They are pushing the number of crew members on the planet to begin with.

 

The Spirans had needed every spare hand they could get, but their leaders, the oldest set of twins in their society, had accepted their help only if Jim, the captain, supervised. In their culture, if the most important person in a single society refuses to take part in the care of those under his or her command, it is a grave insult to the youngest generation. Then, they who’ve been wronged have the right to revolt.

 

Not that Jim needs a reason to stay and help, but starting a civil war is the last thing he wants to do. He simply can’t sit back or half-heartedly assist people in need. In particular, those that are vulnerable, and this species definitely qualifies. According to McCoy, the skeleton of an average, thirty-year-old Spiran male is at least seventy-five percent less dense than that of an average thirty-year-old human female. A fragility that is unusual but not unheard of in the vast number of aliens in the Federation.

 

He must do all that is within his power to help them, even if it means leaving his ship in the hands of a very limited crew.

 

He’s rescued eight children with Gary’s assistance, all of whom are huddled together twenty feet and too scared to move. And he can’t take them to the makeshift medbay, which is closer to the center of the devastation, when there are others here, still trapped.

 

Jim pushes his body to the limit, his muscles burning from hours of constant physical labor. “Not that I’m not grateful for the help, but I thought I told you to stay onboard the Enterprise,” he says crisply to Gary, carefully sliding the a crying child out from under the debris, a precarious pile of schoolbooks, wood, and rock.

 

He’s shocked at how light and small the humanoid girl really is, her size similar to that of a twelve-month-old human child. Without a tricorder, he can’t determine her injuries. Though she is breathing shallowly, she seems to be relatively unharmed.

 

“Seeya m’l li’m m’l!” she cries in a choked voice, her tiny hand tugging at his gold uniform.

 

He knows nothing of the language and seeks to comfort her the only way he knows how. “You’ll be okay,” Jim soothes, smoothing back her ebony strands of hair. “You’re safe now.”

 

Her hair is so long, it appears tangled around her. He looks closer and realizes that her lips are turning blue.

 

“Oh, no,” he whispers, also realizing that her hair is wrapped several times around her neck. He frantically tries to untangle the hair, fumbling when the girl repeats herself in a high-pitched, shrill voice that pierces his ears. “McCoy!”

 

He’s not surprised to learn the doctor is not far from him.

 

“Good work,” McCoy says swiftly, kneeling down beside him. “Her mother just told us that her daughters were still missing, and had been in this wing, the library, before the building collapsed.” He administers a hypo and reads the tricorder in his hand, and gives her a small smile. “Darlin’, you’re going to be just fine. M’l e’n li nyar’rah,” he adds softly.

 

Jim sits back on his haunches. McCoy actually knows the Spiran language? He’s momentarily stupefied and watches as the girl wraps her petite arms around the doctor, allowing him to lift her in his arms and whisk her away to the medical station.

 

“Jim, I think there’s another child trapped!” Gary calls out.

 

He refocuses his attention to his previous task and peers into the burrow they’d started to make. Sure enough, a second pair of eyes peers at him through the darkness—perhaps the other’s sister or friend—but is unable to reach her.

 

“Wait,” Gary says and stands and strains to lift a heavier board from the pile of debris, his face contorted with his effort. He grunts, sweat beginning to pour down his face. “About me being here? You didn’t say a single thing against it, Captain,” he says through clenched teeth, groaning when he lifts the board a little higher in order to provide a wider area for which Jim to squeeze through.

 

He crawls forward again, this time into the small space Gary had managed to forge, hoping that the man can continue holding it open as long as it's necessary. Soon, he’s in complete darkness, and his hand bumps up against a soft form. He’s concerned when the child doesn’t make a sound, and blindly reaches forward. He finds his or her legs first, then their neck and head. Praying that he doesn't injure them any more than they already are, he slips his hands and arms underneath the small, Spiran body and drags them out as smoothly as he can.

 

He grits his teeth, hating that he has to maneuver her over jagged edges of broken rock and wood because the space is still so small. But he's grateful that she can't feel any of it. Nor is she awake to be frightened.

 

Once they reach the front of the burrow, he takes a shallow breath and shifts the child’s weight so that he can stand. “I’ll take her, if you bring the others,” he says to Gary.

 

Gary’s eyes are trained on him. “Right,” he mutters, breathing heavily.

 

As Gary carefully lowers the thick board, Jim heads for the first nurse he sees. A blonde on the edge of a clearing, but away from the utter destruction behind them.

 

_Chapel._

 

He sets his jaw, vowing to ignore the irony of the situation.

 

Gary strides beside him, carrying both of the other children. “You’re bleeding, captain.”

 

That’s news to him. He has no clue where it's coming from.

 

“Perhaps you should sit down and let Nurse Chapel examine you,” Gary continues.

 

Does he see the disaster? The way night is setting in? “No time.”

 

“At least allow her to scan you with a tricorder.”

 

He wants to ask Gary why he even cares, but bites his tongue. “There are dozens still trapped,” he says steadily, instead, and kneels down to place the humanoid girl beside the other children Chapel is treating. “Can’t let a little blood get me down.”

 

She looks up at him, her mouth set in a thin, grim line. “What’s this about a little blood?”

 

He shakes his head. A mistake, since his nose feels funny again. “I’m fine.”

 

“Sit,” she orders, bandaging a child’s arm. “I’ll be the judge of that, captain.”

 

He drags his arm across his eyes, ridding them of sweat and grime.

 

He silently curses when has to do the same to his nose, which is bleeding like it had in his quarters.

 

“I’ll take a rain check,” he says, taking off for the area in which he’d been previously working.

 

She huffs. “Wait, captain!”

 

“Not now, Nurse Chapel,” he calls behind him.

 

He staggers forward, suddenly light-headed as he scans the area for Mitchell, who seems to have disappeared into thin air.

 

Not that it matters. He hears a child's cry and sets out to help them, himself. Many of his crew have moved to the other, larger mound of debris. He hears the child again, and a rustle, which helps him determine where they are, exactly.

 

Somehow, they had missed one, but he won’t.

 

“Hang on!” he calls to them, fighting for breath as he moves a dense rock out of the way. “I’m coming.”

 

He’s too intent on rolling pieces of a boulder away to pay attention to the low rumble and shaking ground or hear the fallout of the aftershock.

 

The sound of another wall collapsing.

 

“Jim!” a man shouts. “Move!”

 

He's too confused to understand why someone calls his name.

 

Someone rams into his side, painfully, and he hits the ground with a thud.

 

All goes black.

 

***

 

Jim takes six days to recuperate in medical, and his first officer, Gary Mitchell, mans the bridge in his stead.

 

Realistically, Jim’s physical injuries—a broken wrist, three fractured ribs, multiple wounds to his right calve, and a concussion—only take four to heal. McCoy keeps him under his watchful eye for another forty-eight hours for the sake of his mental health, and rightfully so. Given that the captain has been somewhat despondent since the accident, and acting strangely for days before that, he can’t be too careful.

 

It’s his job, and his heart’s desire to do so, after all.

 

McCoy hates to leave his side for even a second—he’s paranoid that Mitchell will try to monopolize Jim’s waking hours and cause him undue stress—but he has other work to do, including more of Jim’s paperwork. He reads then signs off on the psych consult, which Jim had barely passed.

 

“I can’t do this,” Chapel hisses to him after a furtive glance at Jim.

 

He can’t fathom the change in her, this stranger who now works alongside him. He can’t comprehend why someone who has always cherished her professionalism is behaving in such a strange manner. It’s like someone has slipped something in her drink or food, altering her behavior. And nothing, not even the dozen reprimands he’s already given her today, has changed a thing.

 

But Jim receiving delayed and poor care, is the last straw, and can no longer be tolerated or excused.

 

“Nurse, I will not allow this unprofessional behavior to get in the way of the captain’s proper treatment,” he says, looking down at her as calmly as he can in his fury. “You are dismissed.”

 

She blinks. “From being his nurse?”

 

“No,” he says adamantly. “For the day. Twenty-four hours. Maybe more if you continue to act in a manner unbecoming to your position on the Enterprise.”

 

She inhales a sharp breath, clearly taken aback. “I-I’m truly sorry—”

 

“Apology accepted, Nurse Chapel, but you’re not fit to care for these patients,” he asserts. “Especially Jim. Not today. I want a one-thousand word essay on the merits of professionalism between nurses and their superiors sent to me by the beginning of my shift tomorrow. Is that clear?”

 

Her eyes flash with remorse. “Yes, Dr. McCoy. It’s perfectly clear.”

 

“Good.” He strides past her and pulls up a chair beside Jim’s biobed.

 

The other man stares at an unknown spot on the wall, never acknowledging his presence.

 

“You want to talk about it?” he asks quietly after a moment.

 

Jim waits a beat, then shakes his head.

 

“Your head of security says there wasn’t any sign that a child had been been under the rubble, Jim.” He reaches over to take Jim’s newly healed hand in his own, but stops before he makes a wrong move. Jim is skittish, not that he blames him. He’d best not add fuel to the fire, not with so many eyes around them. “No remains, no sign. Nothing.”

 

Jim swallows, then coughs several times.

 

“Here,” he says, bringing a glass of water up to his mouth and placing the straw at his lips. “Drink.”

 

Jim takes a few sips, then refuses more. “But it can’t be, Bones,” he whispers, staring at him with wide eyes. “I heard her. I couldn’t get her o-out. I couldn’t save her. She’s de-dead, Bones.”

 

It simply breaks his heart that Jim continues to beat himself up for something that didn’t happen, but he’s distracted by something he said. “What did you just call me?” he asks.

 

To say he’s confused by the name that had fallen so easily from Jim’s lips—twice, for that matter—is an understatement.

 

Jim smiles a warm smile that scatters the storm clouds gathering in his mind, leaving only light. A light that travels straight down to the deepest, darkest parts of his soul.

 

“Bones,” Jim says softly. “I called you Bones.”

 

He recalls what he’d said to Jim when he had been stretched out on top of him, on the ground, after he’d pushed him out of harm’s way—

 

_They’re in the most physically compromising position that they’ve been in since they’ve met, with the most physical contact they’ve ever had. It’s awkward but it feels just right._

_He can sense the pain coming off Jim in waves, which reminds him why they’re like this in the first place. He saw a massive wall collapsing, it’s broken pieces about to fall on Jim._

_It’s with great astonishment that he realizes they’re both alive._

_“Jim,” he says urgently._

_Jim slowly opens his eyes as his body begins to shake. From the looks of it, shock is settling in. Quickly. He wants to wrap his arms around him to comfort him, and pull him closer, if that’s even possible, but his healer’s instincts kick in._

_“Are ya hurt?” he asks, guilt washing over him that he’d plowed into the captain with his entire body, moving him as far away from the collapsing wall as he could, the stones raining down around then, before knocking him to the ground and covering him protectively with his body._

_Their eyes are locked on each other, and he can’t move of his own accord. Not yet._

_“Th-thank you,” Jim tells him in a shaky voice, his breath hot on his chin. “You s-saved my life. You’re n-not hurt?” he asks, his eyes closing with effort, moisture leaking from the corners._

_Touched that he’s inquiring about him when he’s in such pain, when a bone is sticking out from his wrist, he extracts himself from Jim’s body as carefully as possible. But even though he’s careful, he still jostles the captain’s body._

_Jim just groans, and he asks him again. “Yahurt?” he slurs._

_He frowns down at him, suspecting a concussion. “Sorry,” he breathes out and smooths Jim’s hair back with one hand as he pulls the captain’s shirt up to check where the blood is coming from with the other. “Me hurt? No. And even if I was, what are a few broken bones for a friend?”_

 

—and gives him a small, reassuring smile of his own.

 

 

***

 

He doesn’t exactly care for Bones’s order that he recuperate in his quarters for an extra day, after being in sickbay for six days already. The mission had been both disturbing and dangerous and he wishes to get past it. But he discovers that he can’t complain when he wakes up to incredibly sore muscles the very next morning. It’s good to be confined here, alone and in a familiar place, when he’s hobbling around like an old man.

 

He doesn’t want to be half-dressed when Bones arrives in a little while to check on him and presses onward with his usual morning routine. (And he can’t believe the doctor accepted the nickname Jim had given him on a whim. Or, rather, when he hadn't been of sound mind.) Limping his way to the bathroom, he halts in his tracks right before he opens the door. The light is on, which means that his first officer, a man with whom he does not want to interact before he has his first cup of coffee, occupies it.

 

Sighing, he turns around and heads back to his bed, but stops again when his gaze falls on the bare skin of one of his arms and the scratches that extended from his wrist to his elbow in various lengths. The marks are red and fresh. Quite new, actually. He glances at his other arm and finds it in the same condition. In fact, as he slips a hand across his neck muscles, he thinks he feels another mark much like the one he’d found a week ago.

 

With no recollection of anyone else having been in his quarters.

 

But with every recollection that Gary had not held back with Jim when they'd been together, that similar marks had always appeared on his skin after they made out or had sex.

 

He can think of only one reason behind the scratches. Clenching his jaw, he limps to the bathroom door and opens it without a care as to whether Gary is dressed or not. At this point, it doesn’t matter. He just wants answers.

 

He glares at Gary, who had just lathered his face with shaving cream. The familiar, pleasing woodsy scent of the cream wafts his way, but he steels himself against the memories that accompanies it. Gary has always been a little old school when it comes to his body care, and even Jim had learned a few tips from him.

 

(Which is why he now does the opposite of everything he’d taught him.)

 

“You were in my room,” Jim accuses, pulling no punches. “Why?”

 

Gary’s brows rise and indignation falls across his face. “I haven’t been in your quarters, Jim. Not once since stepping foot on your ship.”

 

“I don’t believe you.”

 

Gary turns back to the sink and deftly swipes his jaw with a razor. “Is there something wrong, Jim? Exactly what are you accusing me of?” He gives a dry laugh. “Without merit? Again? Look how far that got you the last time, Jim.”

 

He blinks, stunned. How can Gary deny what happened at the Academy? He’d had proof of his actions. “Unbelievable. If you think that I had accused you before without good reason,” he spits out. “Think again.”

 

Gary raises his hands in mock surrender. “Whoa, Jim. You might want to calm down, before you do something you'll regret.”

 

He doesn’t want to give Gary any more leverage to use against him than he has to, but he has no choice. Not really. “I remember there was someone in my quarters last night, but I was under the influence of one of Dr. McCoy’s sedatives,” he explains. “Was it you?”

 

Technically, it isn’t a complete lie. He had been under the influence of a sedative.

 

“Well, we both know the answer to that, don’t we, Jim? Given our history,” Gary says evenly, “I don’t think it’s a good idea if we go into each other’s quarters.” He pauses and throws him a narrow look. “Do you?”

 

“Do you know if anyone was here?” he grits through clenched teeth, hating the fact that he has to stoop as low as this. Asking his ex if he’d had someone in his quarters. “Did you hear anything? See someone?”

 

Gary’s brows furrow. “I have seen Chapel coming in and out of your quarters recently, not that it’s any of my business.”

 

“Chapel,” he repeats flatly.

 

Gary snorts. “If you can't remember a gorgeous woman like her maybe you had one too many last night, Jimmy.”

 

The nickname slams into his mind like a sickening memory would, but so does Gary’s suggestion that he’d mixed alcohol with the sedative. Back in the Academy, yeah, he'd done stupid things like that. Now, however, he'd avoid it like the plague. Uneasy, he glances behind his shoulder before he can stop himself.

 

Next to his bed are two empty bottles he doesn’t remember being there when he woke up.

 

But that can’t be right, since they _are_ there. Yet his head isn’t breaking in two like he has a hangover, and neither is his stomach upset. His muscles are screaming in protest from being overworked—and nearly being buried in rubble—but that is all.

 

“Jimmy?”

 

It doesn’t make sense, but the implications are there. He’d drank his fill, whether or not it had been Chapel in his arms again. But Chapel had denied it before. And Gary does now.

 

And he, a Starfleet captain who must be in peak mental and physical shape in order to command his ship, can’t remember a damn thing.

 

“Sorry to bother you.” He inches away from Gary, allowing the door to slide shut between them before the other man can say another word.

 

He’ll have to accept this for what it is. A mystery that will be hanging over his head, indefinitely.

 

There’s no way that he’ll even consider approaching Chapel again, embarrassing them both. And he can’t ask anyone else to help him, not even Bones. Especially not him. He doesn't want to kill his chances that someday, if he's lucky, they will act on their shared attraction.

 

He's embarrassed now, that this has happened. He feels as if he's betrayed Bones, too.

 

Cursing under his breath, he discards the bottles, takes the two pain pills that Bones had left him for the day, and decides to do something that he’d sworn he’d never, _ever_ do.

 

It is the only chance he has to understand what is happening to him.

 

He shivers, for he’s only had one other experience like it. On Delta Vega, with Spock’s counterpart, after the ancient Vulcan had watched his entire planet implode.

 

He’d gotten over it after a few weeks, thanks to Boyce’s immediate intervention, but the emotional transference had been a bitch.

 

Upon their arrival to New Vulcan, he’ll ask Spock to meld with him and dig through his mind like it’s a damn filing cabinet.

 

His mother had had one of those antique things once. Every time she’d rifled through those files, looking for old family documents, she’d left behind a disaster. Papers were left in disarray, a few of which were scattered on the floor, while others were stuffed wherever there was room.

 

Jimmy and his brother, Sam, would sometimes trample on them by accident when they chased each other around the house. Other times they stepped on them just to get her to punish them. Any attention was preferable to none.

 

Yeah.

 

Another meld, another person seeing his darkest secrets—and apparently things which are unknown even to him, that could seriously jeopardize his relationships with his crew—is going to be a real picnic.

 

Just freaking terrific.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The entirety of Chapter Two became a fic of its own! I feel like I should apologize for that. I hope you all enjoyed it! Especially now that Jim is calling McCoy "Bones." <3


	4. 3.1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mirror, Mirror - yes, that mirror. Happy Halloween, I guess? ;)
> 
> The chapter will reflect the mess in Jim’s head, the disaster this “verse” causes. In other words, the scenes will not be in order. They are scrambled in both Part One of Chapter 3, and Part Two. But between the two of them, you'll be able to place them in order. You may have to read this particular part a few times to catch everything, and tentatively place the scenes in order. Just to note in advance, the very first scene of these two parts occurs before they get to New Vulcan. The others...well, you'll see. ;)
> 
> I decided to split this one up, too, in order to post sooner than later. Many thanks to junker5 and diamondblue4 for their help - and great enthusiasm for this chapter. :D 
> 
> I am aware that this must be the lamest 5-and-1 fic you’ve ever read, as far as format goes. I’m assuming this story will consist of about ten or eleven chapters by the time I’m done. :) So I apologize if you started reading, expecting this to be a super short story with six chapters. Obviously, things didn’t go as planned.
> 
> Warnings: Mild descriptions of torture, emotional/psychological abuse, dubious consent, non-con as far as physical/sexual advances

 

***

 

3.1

 

***

 

 

 

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great—

 

“Jim? Jim? Can you hear me?”

 

No, his mind wails silently. He doesn't want to answer, the interruption breaking his focus and splintering the only words that had been clear to him. They’d told him to do this. To recite—

 

_You must recite, Captain. Recite, until it consumes you..._

Recite. That’s what they said. Until it consumed him, like a roaring ocean, drowning its victim. Or a black hole, which he liked better, and had told them so.

 

They’d liked that.

 

_Do not stop._

_Recite._

_Be consumed._

 

“Please, Jim…” The voice is familiar, but not quite the same.

 

He’s confused, but he’s not afraid. He’s not afraid. He’s not afraid.

 

He is not afraid.

 

_You will recite, Captain. Recite until it consumes you._

 

And he does. It’s coming easier now. Humpty! Dumpty! Sat on a wall! he gleefully remembers.

 

The words bounce off of the walls containing him, so no one but him can reach them.

 

They're _his_.

 

Zig-zag. Zig-zag. One. Plink! Two. Plink! Three. Plink! Four. Plink!

 

He likes the mash of words that make no sense, the sounds that ricochet like pebbles off a window.

 

_You will recite, Captain. Recite until it consumes you._

_Plink? he asks._

_Yes, Captain._

 

He thinks he’s succeeding, but the hands on his body distract him.

 

What is it again? Was it a song? A poem? Just words? Think, think think!

 

Plink! Plink!

 

The what, it doesn't matter, only that he recites—

 

_Recite until it consumes you._

He grasps at the words, triumphant.

 

All the King's horses, and all the King’s men—

 

“Shit, Jim.” It touches him again, hands shaking. “Without the tricorder, I can’t tell exactly...but I’m pretty sure those bastards broke your leg—”

 

He knows that. He's never been unable to straighten his leg since. But he has these words, a mission.

 

He opens his mouth to speak, but the voice rudely interrupts him again.

 

It mutters, as if to itself. “Your fingers, all but two seem to be broken, abrasions, these markings…. Good God, they carved into your chest....what kind of animals abuse people like this…. Dammit, Jim, I didn’t see…. You’re losing too much blood.” It curses, loudly, and he hears a sound like fabric, ripping. “I’m gonna make a tourniquet. I'll….I’ll have to carry you.”

 

No, no—

 

That’s not what they want. He’s not fit to carry. He must be consumed.

 

Recite. Consume. Consume. Zig-zag, and plink! CONSUME, his mind demands from him. They want the words. They want Humpty, and the king’s men, and —

 

His tongue slips out, barely moisten his lips, as he seeks to obey. “Humpty Dumpty sat on a—

 

The voice nags him again. “We need to move, Captain. I'm sorry. This is gonna hurt.”

 

He doesn’t trust him. Or anyone. It’s survival, that’s all. Nothing personal.

 

A hand dares to touch his shoulder, and he shrinks away from it, bending his broken body towards the wall that it had broken against.

 

“Before they come back,” it whispers. “It’s our only chance.”

 

Oh, God, no. They can’t. They can’t come back.

 

But they will, and he knows they’ll find him, and he knows that he’d failed.

 

He curls into himself, grips the side of his head, presses into his skull with his claws, because he is a monster, like _them_. He must become smaller.

 

Invisible.

 

Nothing.

 

The man beside him makes a distressing noise in his throat, like a muffled curse. But maybe it’s him. He hears the moan in his chest—his own chest—rising to his throat, reflecting the state of his pleasantly, ravaged mind.

 

So this is what being shattered feels like.

 

Pieces, he’s in pieces, too many jagged pieces to count. He remembers puzzles, how one is supposed to solve them, so he tries. Or had tried. It had been no use. His hands had been bloodied from trying to put himself back together, too slippery to work properly, so he’d stopped— _recite until it consumes you_ —and allowed them to lay scattered all around him.

 

He feels numb. The way it’s supposed to be.

 

Brokenness has always followed him, hasn’t it?

 

“Jim, say something,” the voice pleads. “I need to know you’re with me, Captain.”

 

With him? Of course he isn’t with him. He has other things to do, the zig-zag and plink and consuming, always the consuming.

 

“Humpty dumpty,” he recites obediently, and, when he thinks he’s alone once more, tests the voice of a different man. “All the King’s men, c-couldn’t p-put-”

 

He’s no longer Kirk, the captain. They’d made sure of that. They’d made sure of everything.

 

He laughs. It feels good, takes away the pain. He laughs again, cackles like he'd heard them do. Mimicking them, although it makes him sick inside.

 

“Jesus, Jim,” he hears someone say now. “The hell?”

 

He wants to tell, beg him to remove the darkness, but something stops him. They can never know.

 

Never.

 

The monsters will find a way to use it against him.

 

“If I ever get my hands on them...” the other voice says, near breaking. “Here we go, up, up, up, Jim—”

 

As he's slung over broad shoulders, Jim smirks at the voice, which sounds like them. The mind reader. The doctor. Somehow, he’d known it had been a trick. _It_ was one of _them_. “‘Up, up, up, Jim’!” he repeats in a sing-song voice.

 

Laughing, because playing along, singing, obeying them—it’s freedom.

 

“Christ,” it whispers in return. “You never do anything halfway, do ya?”

 

“One,” he chants. “Two.” Zig-zag. “Three, four.” Plink!

 

And his laughter echoes down the corridor, twisting and turning, beckoning him to follow it.

 

Zig-zag, plink!

 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” the voice rambles on. “We’re running out of time. We’ll have to go a different way to the transporter room. Sulu’s pacing the corridor, waiting for us. _Our_ Chekov managed to stun the guards and convince that other bastard to get us off of this ship sooner rather than later. Seems like we came here at the perfect time. The captain's away, and there’s mutiny on the bounty.”

 

But Jim knows—they’ll find him, anyway. And they’ll want to play again. It’s a complete toss up what they’d use next. Knives or mind games. Maybe both.

 

The doctor petting him, free of charge!

 

It’s not hard to imagine the touch of McCoy’s hand again, sliding down his neck in a possessive caress, the weight of his hand on his shoulder, his arms eagerly slipping around Jim’s waist.

 

That same McCoy squeezing his neck, after Jim had made a mad dash for the door.

 

His blood, fresh and dripping down his near-naked body, mingling with the doctor’s sweat.

 

The doctor twisting his words, the feelings he harbors for Bones, directing it at himself.

 

But without warning, all was lost to him, even this. Reality is wrenched from his mind, like the ghost had pulled it away.

 

He shrieks silently, his voice cut off, his cry of “Bones,” dying, before it even escapes his lips.  
It’s replaced by the phantom pain in his head, this ghost controlling every part of his psyche. A remnant.

 

_You will never be alone, Captain. You will never rid yourself of your time here._

_Be consumed._

_...on his own ship, and he didn’t even know it..._

_You'll fall into my hands before his, I’ll make sure of that._

_BE CONSUMED._

_And he will know. My mark, Jim. Mine._

_...on his own ship, and he didn’t even know it…_

 

What did he mean? What did it mean? What did anything mea-

 

The unknown frightens him. He whimpers, the sound morphing into a pathetic wheeze. But at least there’s a sound.

 

He’s alive.

 

He’s human.

 

He’s theirs to control.

 

A breath-sucking panic fills his chest, too much, too fast.

 

He feels as if he’s being carved from the inside out, his heart removed first, the Vulcan still breathing down his neck as he chops off the fragile ties of his heart, anything that grounds him to his crew.

 

Zig-zag Pling Humpty One Two Pling Pling Three Four had a _great_ _fallwhatthehellhappenedtohimohgodwhathappenedtohi_ -

 

“Hey, it’ll be okay, Jim,” the voice soothes. “I promise. I'll get you outta here.”

 

The numbness returned, for he knows better. Of course it won’t let him escape. This is a ploy.

 

The body carrying him moves quickly, and Jim’s arms dangle like forgotten strings. Thinking of puppets, and smiling to himself when he does, he recalls what had been so carefully placed into his mind. The Vulcan had set it there, a pretty package just for him, tied up with a bow and waiting at the threshold of his mind, begging to be opened.

 

He recalls the words again, as the voice continues to talk to him, as if he’s in charge of Jim and not _them_. “We’ll get outta here, Captain, but you’re gonna have to tone it down, man.”

 

Man?

 

He doesn’t know why, but he wants to laugh at this. “Shhhhh!” he sings.

 

The voice sighs wearily. “Hush, Jim,” it tells him.

 

_Be consumed, Captain, by your human frailty._

_It is your weakness._

_Love is your weakness._

_This? What you sense is happening between us? I’d call it a fall from grace, at least for you._

_And a little bit of that doesn’t hurt anyone, James. Remember that._

_BE CONSUMED._

_You might need to in the future._

_Or you’ll see just how mighty you’d been, only to fall so damn low._

 

“—and all the King’s men,” he slurs happily, smiling to himself, remembering.

 

(Remembering himself saying and _this is you, speaking from experience?_ )

 

(But the reply is lost to him.)

 

The memory dashes away, and he cackles, liking the lightness it brings. “—couldn’t put Hum’ty Dum’ty t’gether aga—”

 

“Dammit, kid,” the voice shakes, close to rage. “What the hell did they do to you?”

 

***

 

 

“He’ll be happy to see you on his wedding day, Captain,” Nyota says.

 

A wedding day. A day that is revered. Honored. Celebrated. Spock’s day. Nyota’s day. His friends’ day.

 

No two people deserve it more.

 

He must remember this.

 

_He must recite._

 

“And after all you’ve been through, I’m glad you’ll make it.” Nyota gently squeezes his arm before taking a spot on the transporter pad beside him, giving him a grateful smile. “It wouldn’t be the same without you, Captain.”

 

He prays the smile he gives her in return is golden, for it feels decrepit and aged and destroyed. “I wouldn’t miss it.”

 

He almost had, their last mission a disaster, making them postpone their wedding for another week.

 

He thinks he’d be just as glad not to see Spock again—and feels about an inch tall when he does.

 

She gives him a look, and he has to remind himself that she can’t sense what he’s thinking, not even by a single touch. “Even if you did, he’d just be glad that you’re well again.”

 

(But he's not. Not really. Mitchell is still Acting Captain, Bones giving them all more time to heal from their unprecedented trip into a proverbial rabbit hole.)

 

“Right,” he says, averting his gaze.

 

He can’t bear to look anyone in the eyes. Doesn’t want anyone to see. Can’t let anyone discover that he’s floundering, faking his command.

 

“I mean that,” she says.

 

He doesn’t fucking care, feels guilty that he doesn’t care, and glances down at his feet, telling himself to breathe. He can’t keep freaking out like this, especially when the time comes and the transporter comes to life and deposits him on New Vulcan.

 

If he can’t disguise his emotions, or bluff his way through their concern, Spock is going to catch on pretty damn fast. And if Spock catches on, he’ll have to get another psych consult, or have to endure another medical exam under Bones’s watchful eye.

 

But he doesn’t think he can stomach the thought of _those hands on him._

 

He can't stop being too afraid to close his eyes at night, or, now, fear for his own life in the middle of the day.

 

“Are you alright?” Nyota’s eyes are filled with more than just concern, maybe even pity.

 

He doesn’t want to imagine his communications officer in their world, but he does.

 

She’s as evil as the worst he’d seen, and nothing will ever erase it from his memory.

 

How is this his life?

 

He can’t even look at anyone, let alone allow himself to believe that reuniting with Spock after all this time is going to go without a hitch. His chest tightens with the same relentless, suffocating panic that he’s felt for the past few days, ever since Bones had found him. He still doesn’t know how Bones had managed to rescue him, risking his own life to bring him back to his ship. He hasn’t even taken a look at his report, or Sulu’s, or Chekov’s.

 

He can’t bring himself to read about what had happened. If he does, he can’t help but think that it’ll make things real again, giving him worse nightmares.

 

“Jim?”

 

A lump lodges in his throat. He places a hand over his over his heart, which still feels as if it were being torn to shreds. He lightly massages the area, but it doesn’t help, this protective gesture, and the anxiety is debilitating.

 

“Captain?”

 

Oh, God, no. He can’t be having a panic attack. Not on Spock’s wedding day. Not before he can even get off his damn ship.

 

But he is, and the last thing he needs right now is Nyota probing him, when all he can see is her sneer that isn’t there. “I’m f-fine,” he says, the words burning as they pass through his throat, like a lie should.

 

He’s certain he’ll lose his breakfast, what little he’d eaten, if she doesn’t stop talking to him. He has to start moving, fighting his hardships in his own way, like he’s always done.

 

She probes, anyway, his lousy attempt at warding off her questions failing. “You were cleared, medically, right?” Her tone is unsure now. “Dr. McCoy says you’re recovered?”

 

Recovered? He wants to laugh in her face. Recovery as she knows it, and as Bones knows it, is next to impossible for him.

 

He doesn’t even know why the psychiatrist had cleared him for duty, why she’d signed off on his chart. Now that he thinks about it, he can’t recall even having the damn consult, though it’s noted in his own log. Maybe, since she's new to the ship, new to being under his command, she’d simply been easy on him. (It bothers him if this is true, but he doesn't want to burden anyone with this. It's _his_ problem, and he'll get through it by himself. Eventually.)

 

He knows what will heal him, what will get rid of the terror stalking him by day and by night like a serial killer straight out of a horror film. It’s what he’d wanted to do before this latest mess had even happened, what he’d wanted to do about the mystery surrounding Christine.

 

But now it’s the last thing he’ll ever do. Even at the expense of his own happiness.

 

“Ready, Captain?” Scotty blessedly interrupts.

 

He gathers up the strength to reply. “Aye, Scotty,” Jim rasps, giving him a weak smile.

 

“Captain, maybe we should wait for Dr. McCoy.”

 

He ignores her, waits for his body to come apart at the seams. Like his mind already has, little by little, until there are fractures in every corner. He can’t help but wonder if there are any crazy, psychotic captains in Starfleet history that have been able to keep their command?

 

He wonders if he’ll be the first. He’s done a damn good job hiding his crazy for two whole days.

 

Forever doesn’t seem like much.

 

“Jim,” she repeats, addressing him as a friend, like that will help anything.

 

His friends had hurt him—he fucking tears up at the thought—irrevocably.

 

But they aren’t his friends, and that’s the damn problem. Jim can't differentiate between them anymore, and it’s driving him freaking crazy. The rest of her words are swept away along with their particles. His feet are soon planted on dry, red earth—

 

—and he sees his face.

 

_Be consumed._

 

The voice is loud and barbaric, coming from Spock—from within his head—but no one else notices. He lurches back—away from the monster—the fucking beard that had to be there—but isn’t there—straightening himself with a shaky laugh. “Damn transporters.”

 

“Captain,” his Spock says, his eyes oddly warm.

 

He’s frozen, and confused. Something isn’t right. These eyes are kind, and open.

 

They should be cold, void of any concern and kindness. Menacing, without a hint of compassion. Evil, filled with spiteful intent.

 

He's not sure how to respond to this other Spock and stares at him blankly.

 

“Captain,” his first states again.

 

He’s locked on those shockingly guileless eyes, another voice—the same one in cruel timbre—echoing the title in his head like a demon.

 

He sees them, now, the faces of those right beside him morphing into heartless others that had taken him apart, his mind caught between the horrors he’d seen and the horrors that continue, contaminating every nook and cranny of his shredded, manipulated psyche.

 

(The psyche that will never be the same, no matter what is done to get rid of this terrifying reality.)

 

He sounds like him—and, oh, God, he can’t be him, he can’t be him—and Jim can’t find his words again, his reason for being here.

 

He has no idea how to voice a common, safe greeting for his best first, or how he will stop his hands from shaking. His fear weakens him, settles into his knees like it would a spineless man.

 

(He thinks it would be better if Gary continues to be Acting Captain in his stead indefinitely, not just for another week as Bones has promised. Gary had done well, had done all that he could to rescue them.)

 

Had they done those things to him on purpose, knowing this would happen later? Crippling him? So he would never be able to function like himself again?

 

He has a feeling that if they’d had time, they would have taken him completely part, only to rebuild him to become as twisted as they were.

 

“Spock,” he croaks. “I-I have to go back to the ship. I’m so-sorry.”

 

Aware of the confusion growing in Spock’s eyes, and the hint of hurt flickering on the face of his very best first, he takes a single step backwards.

 

He flips his communicator open. His mind goes blank. Both hands are shaking now, and to hide them, he turns his back on his enemies—

 

No, that’s not right. They’re his friends.

 

But that isn’t right, either.

 

Cruel, touch-sensitive hands had manhandled him into the booth, locked the door, and left him to scream and fry in agony. Another pair of hands that had manhandled him, mixing pleasure with pain—

 

The memory is too much, too fast, and a shiver travels down his spine at warp speed. He trembles, outside, inside, in the pathetic hollow that remains, all they’d left of him.

 

Of course he knows what they are.

 

They’re monsters.

 

“Kirk to Enterprise.” He makes his voice small and insignificant so that the others don’t hear him, that he’s not discovered before he can escape.

 

Shame immediately floods his chest. This isn’t what he meant to do.

 

“Sir?” Sulu answers.

 

He whispers so that his voice doesn’t break like the rest of him has, and tucks the words they’d forced him to remember, away, where he can’t reach them.

 

Out of reach.

 

They have to be.

 

_They have to._

 

“One to beam up.”

 

 

***

 

McCoy can’t say that he’s surprised when Christine pops into in his office the moment he enters to collect the PADD containing Jim’s chart. Yesterday, while Jim had been in his quarters recovering from his injuries, she had been the nurse he’d grown to appreciate since becoming CMO. The third hand that he’d depended on in any emergency. Level-headed. Efficient. Professional. Today, however, ever since Jim had returned to the bridge for alpha shift, she’s had a strange look on her face. Like she expects the captain to show up in the middle of sickbay, asking her if she’d meet him in his quarters again.

 

He still can’t wrap his mind around what had possessed Jim to believe that Chapel had come to his quarters in the first place, for some romantic engagement, that is. It doesn’t fit the image he has of the man he’s gotten to know—gotten to know well. The most logical explanation is that the captain is suffering from nightmares like before, and that means that McCoy must intervene. He has to discuss Jim’s options with him. He can’t let it continue, or Chapel will fray at the edges even more than she has already. He can’t let this slide by, or Jim’s control will disintegrate.

 

Chapel clears her throat.

 

He waves her in. “Yes, Nurse Chapel.”

 

She doesn’t enter, but stands there in the doorway in an exaggerated display of politeness. “Dr. McCoy, may I have a word with you?”

 

He checks the chronometer. He’s meeting Jim for lunch in half an hour, an appointment he doesn't want to miss for several reasons, but he wants to go to the bridge, first, unannounced. He needs to see for himself that Jim is listening to his instructions to take it easy. He had decreed nothing but light duties for Jim, for the man had been absolutely crazy in his quarters yesterday. He also needs to administer his pain medication. Jim had commed him a short time ago, confessing that his leg had been bothering him all morning, and that the pain was becoming too much for him to think properly.

 

Jim’s pain tolerance is pretty damn high, and he’s never requested an additional dose before, so it had surprised McCoy. He has no issue with giving the captain a proper dosage of medication, and given the injuries Jim had sustained, including the severe trauma to his leg as the building had collapsed. He could administer the medication without hesitation or concern that it would become a habitual practice.

 

“I was just leaving for the bridge soon, so make it quick,” he says.

 

She waits a beat, then steps in. The door slides shut and she speaks, an expression of resignation on her face. “I think I was there.”

 

“Excuse me?”

 

“The captain’s quarters,” she says flatly. “Like he said I was.”

 

If McCoy’s heart begins to pound, if the feeling of dread he’s tried to squelch is reemerging, he’s not going to admit it. And if his instincts tell him that this isn’t going to take just a minute or two to sort out, he’s not going to admit that, either. Although, dammit, Jim is in pain and waiting for his help. “Why tell me?”

 

She looks at him exasperatedly, as if he’s too stupid to not understand it himself. “He’s closest to you, and you’re his doctor.”

 

“Shouldn’t you be discussing this with Ji—the captain?” He’s stunned that he doesn’t trip over his words more.

 

Her short, dry laugh carries across the room, and sours her expression. “I’m not sure he wants to even be in the same room with me.”

 

“Did you try to speak with him today?” he asks, feeling as if he’s walking on eggshells around everyone, not just Jim.

 

“He seems out of sorts again,” she says, looking at him like she expects him to agree.

 

Of course he does, although it’s one more thing he shouldn’t discuss without getting to the root of the problem with Jim, first. “He was in sickbay until recently,” he reminds her.

 

He’s certain the captain’s still having nosebleeds, otherwise, his yeoman wouldn’t have had to come to sickbay for more of the salve and tissues he’d recommended Jim use. Jim continues to shrug it off whenever he asks him, not that it will stop him from forcing the man down to his sickbay once and for all and figuring out this mess, like he should have done in the beginning. He’s had enough experience to realize it's past time.

 

“It's not that,” she replies, shaking her head. “There’s a wary look in his eye, he’s distant, maybe even paranoid—I don't know. He's ...he’s just not himself. And I know he's still healing, even grieving the child he thought had perished in the earthquake. I don't want to upset him.”

 

(He makes a mental note to set up another psych consult for Jim.)

 

He can’t say much, because he has no proof that the captain is losing his grip on sanity. Just her vague innuendos.

 

(And his own intuition, if he’s honest.)

 

“Well,” she starts, when he’s too quiet. “Maybe...maybe we were both drunk. In his quarters.”

 

He crosses his arms, leans back in his chair, wishing that he could see the bigger picture. “You don’t sound so sure.”

 

“It’s not something I normally do.” She lifts her chin, her perfectly manicured hands clasped before her. “At least when I’m on duty the next day.”

 

“I’m not sure he does that, either,” he says honestly.

 

She stares at him, and he can’t help but wonder... if this is true, about the both of them, where does that leave them?

 

“I remember it,” she croaks.

 

He lurches from his relaxed position. “What? I thought you couldn’t?” He pauses. That isn’t right. “I thought you...were certain you weren't.”

 

She closes her eyes with a harsh wince. “I lied.”

 

He takes a moment to process the new information. This changes everything. “Christine, it’s been days—a week,” he berates her. “You lied to a commanding officer. Two officers.”

 

“I know,” she murmurs. “For what it’s worth, I am sorry.”

 

He doesn’t know whether to write her up or protect her—or both. “Captain Kirk has been unsettled for too long,” he firmly states.

 

It’s her turn to look surprised. “You asked him?”

 

He quickly realizes he’s backed himself in a corner. “No,” he clips. “I just know.”

 

Her eyes soften around the edges unexpectedly, as she registers what he leaves unsaid. That he’s so attuned to Kirk he can identify what’s troubling him. That he’s invested in the captain, perhaps more than a CMO should be. That he’s catalogued every smile the captain’s given him. Each word, even everything that he _hasn’t_ said.

 

But all of that points to one thing and one thing alone—that Kirk is as smitten with him as McCoy is with him. And it appears that he hasn’t been as close-mouthed about it as he’d hoped.

 

It’s also an attraction now jeopardized by this _unknown_.

 

“I see,” she says.

 

“Tell me what happened.” He braces himself for what has to come next. The truth. The pseudo truth. A dream.

 

A nightmare.

 

Jim—and Christine?

 

His best nurse—and the captain?

 

Good God—no one—least of all him—had seen that coming. And maybe that’s just it. If no one has picked up on it, it simply can’t be true.

 

He rues the fact that Spock is no longer aboard the ship, one logical, stone throw’s away.

 

“W-we kissed,” she begins haltingly. “His hand was around my waist, in a loose embrace, but my h-hand was on the back of his...his neck, none too gently…” she gulps a breath, covering her mouth too late.

 

(He sees how horrified she is, a glimpse of fresh cracks.)

 

A power struggle, with her winning? He has to blink several times while she continues to explain, a tremble in her voice that doesn’t belong, a horror in her eyes that reflects the devastation she feels, and asks her to repeat it again.

 

He’s part testing her, part wanting her to take it all back.

 

She hisses out a breath, but acquiesces. “We kissed.” She twists her hands together, now, as if he’s torturing her just by asking. “Passionately, his arms...my arms around him...his—”

 

He holds up a hand. “I’ve heard enough.”

 

Her pulse visibly thrums at her neck. “You believe me?”

 

Her cheeks are red with the shame that she shouldn’t feel, and he can imagine the same will happen to Jim, after they approach him.

 

After _he_ approaches Jim.

 

But it can’t be true, he tells himself again. It simply can’t. He’s seen nothing from Kirk to indicate he’s even remotely romantically interested in Chapel. “There has to be a logical—”

 

Her eyes snap with fury.

 

He falters. “Christine…”

 

“I’m not lying,” she spits out.

 

“I didn’t say that you were, Christine, only that there has to be a reasonable explanation for what you think really happened.”

 

She tenses, her shoulders hunching up and she turns to leave. “If you don’t believe me, ask him. Ask the captain. If you recall, he’s already asked me about it once.”

 

He rises when he sees it on her own uniform.

 

Red. Drops of bright red.

 

The coincidence is surreal. He thinks he should’ve expected it. He’s seen stranger things than this, not that he’s going to ever explain that.

 

He’d promised the powers that be that he would never speak about it, barring the worst case scenario. So far, there has been no “worst case scenario,” and he aims to keep it that way for their protection.

 

“Chris, stop,” he commands, coming around his desk.

 

She jerks to a halt and glances back at him with regret in her eyes, but her tone is not as forthcoming. “Changed your mind, Doctor?”

 

He takes one of the tissues he’s had on hand for the captain and gives it to her, ignoring the fact that she’d literally sassed him, her commanding officer. Christine, insubordinate? It didn't make sense. Any of it.

 

“Nose bleed,” he says gently, waiting for her to take it.

 

She pales and reaches out, closes her eyes as her fingers pluck it from his hand. “I didn’t know,” she mumbles, bringing the tissue up to her nose and pinching it tightly.

 

He takes pity on her, decides to give her the day—again—away from her responsibilities. And from Jim. “I know,” he says, guiding her to sit in a spare chair, the way she leans on him, as if to hold her weight, more than disconcerting. “I’ll need to examine you, Chris, once I check up on Jim. Since the captain is getting nosebleeds, too, I’d be a fool not to notice and investigate the connection of similar symptoms.”

 

She huffs a laugh, her eyes averted, her body coiled once again. “You believe there is one?”

 

He stares down at her carefully. “Do you?”

 

She doesn't answer.

 

***

 

 

“Did I comm you?” Jim echoes. He mentally scratches his head. He must be missing something. He hasn’t even touched his comm, hasn’t even spoken to anyone but the bridge crew on hand and Starfleet this morning.

 

“Yes,” Bones says, his eyes reflecting his confusion.

 

Terrific. Not only is he—Jim—going crazy, now Bones is, too, the last person on this ship who would ever play games with him, or lie to him.

 

Of course he hasn’t commed Bones. He’s been too busy to even think about the pain he felt in his leg. “I didn’t,” he explains, frowning. “I’ve been in a meeting with Starfleet, who want me to personally beam down with the away team, and retrieve a Dr. Dehner from the site.”

 

Bones blinks. “Dr. Dehner?”

 

Bones’s expression is strange, and he gets the feeling that the name is familiar to him. “You know her?” he asks.

 

“I know a Dr. Dehner,” the younger man says, the ticking of his jaw unmistakeable.

 

That’s good enough for him, and he decides to bring the doctor with him. He dislikes psychiatrists in general, not that he lets that get in the way of acting professional around them. He’s already feeling off kilter, lately. He needs a buffer. Bones is perfect. (In more ways than one.) “We leave in fifteen minutes.”

 

Bones snorts. “We? Where the hell do you think you’re going with a bum leg?”

 

“I do what the brass tells me to do,” he flouts, and strides for the lift, the best he can with a subtle limp, anyway.

 

“I’ve never known you to be a puppet,” Bones mutters from behind him, Jim feeling his calculating eyes boring into his still-healing leg. “Besides, I don’t recall you askin’ me.”

 

Something about his tone makes Jim pause. He reaches the lift and turns around to face Bones. “You know her, don’t you?”

 

“I already said—”

 

“I know what you said.” Jim folds his arms, stands firm in his way. Finally, something else about Bones’s past, a well-kept secret on the Enterprise. “How well?”

 

Bones’s eyes flicker wildly for a moment. “Friend...of the family.”

 

“More than a friend?” he asks, as Bones brushes past him, to the lift.

 

“Ya comin’ or not?”

 

He grins at the grumpy doctor, getting a kick out of how easily he’d ruffled his feathers, making his drawl endearingly pronounced. “You liked her.”

 

Bones sends him the withering look of an irritated teenager. It only makes Jim grin wider.

 

“No,” Bones says, teeth clenched.

 

The clipped voice doesn’t deter him. “So you’re bi.” He shrugs. “So am I.”

 

Bones sighs loudly, the sound aging him by at least a decade. “That's not it.”

 

“Sure.”

 

Bones’s broad shoulders grow rigid. “Jim, leave it alone.”

 

The vehemence in the doctor’s voice takes him aback for a moment.

 

But Bones is still a baby compared to almost everyone on his ship, and it dawns on him. Bones had studied psychiatry, too, in the short time in which he’d managed to cram all his studies. “You must have had some crush, Bones, for you to react this way,” he muses aloud.

 

The thought sends a rush of heat straight to his groin. To have been the object of the doctor’s affections to the extent that he’d altered the path of his career, just for him—

 

Hot damn. If only he were so lucky. He hasn’t been able to read the doctor as well as he used to, lately, but that may be his—Jim’s—own fault. He doesn’t talk to many of his crew, especially when it’s more than likely that his nose will begin to bleed in the middle of the conversation. Unfortunately, nothing Bones has given him to try and stop the nosebleeds has worked. Worse, there doesn’t seem to be an end to it in sight. With that in mind, he’d started hiding them from Bones, to keep from worrying him unnecessarily.

 

Bones clears his throat.

 

Jim jerks back to attention, flushes when he notices the doctor is studying him.

 

“You’re an idiot,” Bones says flatly. “You know how old she is, right? She’s like—”

 

“Thirty-eight years old,” he calculates easily. He’d memorized the psychiatrist’s file, already. Just like he memorizes everything.

 

(Except for Chapel.)

 

Or used to, anyway.

 

“—my mother.

 

Jim’s thankful the door slides shut, covering his cackle of laughter. “No, shit, and I’m, what? Your fa—”

 

“Don’t even say it,” Bones groans.

 

Something—maybe the slightly panicked look on Bones’s face—holds him back.

 

Still, he can’t resist egging him on once more time. “So you were an infant,” he says casually, leaning against the lift, stealing Bones’s own line. He glances sideways at the brooding young doctor. “Did you sing nursery rhymes to charm her?”

 

That immediately earns him a swat on the back of his head.

 

***

 

His head is imploding.

 

An unwelcome presence pokes and prods without care, leaving more—and more and more and more—destruction in its wake.

 

There is nothing, absolutely nothing, but him—

 

Gar—

 

There is nothing but her—

 

Christi—

 

His world shifts, and there is nothing but darkness, field, and famine. Desire, Bones, and his longing—

 

The hand slips from his face before his heart stirs with any happiness, the loss of touch releasing the pressure on his head but sending unwelcome messages, thoughts and memories, none of which he can even describe, swirling into the crevices like ships lost in the deep sea.

 

It’s too much for his human mind, they tell him, and his captor mocks his limitations.

 

Jim’s mind reels, suddenly alight, twisted until it's rung out and discarded.

 

“Fuck!” he gasps, fighting against the frantic emotions coming in waves, the hideous thoughts that he has been forced to endure.

 

Boneless, he breathes in shallowly, through his gaping, twisted mouth, any other cries he may have had bound to his mind, like his body is bound to this chair.

 

“Now I’m as sadistic as you, possibly more, definitely more, but I’m not sure he can take much more of that, Spock,” he hears Bones’s doppelgänger drawl.

 

“Dr. McCoy, he will endure.”

 

The doctor snorts. “Right. Look at him. He’s not used to these damn melds like our Jim is.”

 

Shivering at the familiar voices around him, discussing him like he's their plaything—and maybe he is—Jim tries to count.

 

He tries, not sure why, but he thinks he’s supposed to.

 

It's a process he quickly finds almost too difficult to perform in the aftermath of a violent, forced meld. He doesn’t know how long he sits there, hours or days, waiting to be tormented and destroyed, at their mercy—always at their mercy—only to be built up again by their twisted minds, to start the painful and exhausting process all over again.

 

He gets to three, finally, which is maddening—what are the next numbers?—and convenient at the same time.

 

He thinks that number is important. He just can't put his finger on it.

 

One.

 

Two.

 

Three.

 

Right. He’s relieved he’s finally thought of it. Three. Three times.

 

This had been the third time Spock had mind-raped him.

 

He thinks.

 

(He isn’t sure, and can’t be sure about anything at this point.)

 

He hasn’t seen Bones since they’d been stunned in the transporter room right after their untimely...arrival. He hasn’t seen Sulu or Chekov, either. Oh, but that isn’t true.

 

He _has_ seen Chekov, his feral counterpart, anyway, who’d helped sharpen McCoy’s blades—a dozen or more—for him, then watched as the doctor expertly carved lines on Jim’s chest, thighs, and back, wherever this McCoy fancied to mark him.

 

His mind grows blessedly numb against the memory of his physical torture and the wicked delight in his captors’ eyes they sometimes couldn't hide. His body is weakened from the recent blood loss, a painful, raw wound on his leg or chest, he can’t be sure. He's sure he's dehydrated by now, as they tease him with water beyond his reach.

 

The doctor’s creativity stings the most, and he hates himself for it. He wishes he could say that it hadn’t been Dr. McCoy who’d carved him like a turkey on a platter, but he can’t.

 

It _had_ been Dr. McCoy, a man highly skilled at brutal, merciless knifeplay.

 

(Who'd cruelly managed to elicit a brief, unwanted sensation of pleasure from Jim.)

 

(Who’d wiped away the blood dripping from Jim’s nose with gentle but frantic movements, cursing up a storm, because it hadn't been something that _he_ had done to his ‘not-Jim.’)

 

(He lets himself grow numb to _that_. Clearly, he’d underestimated the purely sadistic nature of his captors.)

 

“Ah, yes,” the Vulcan murmurs. “Your mind cannot take his telepathy as well as mine, Captain. I will enjoy this. If only I could see his reaction when he penetrates your mind again, and discovers that I have helped him.”

 

McCoy chuckles, but it isn’t the nice sound that he’s used to hearing. This is a dark sound that sends chills down his spine, curls his toes, shatters his hope that he’ll be able to look at Bones the same way he had before. “Strange, isn’t it, Spock? He has his own sick fuck on his ship and he didn’t even know it.”

 

Jim sucks in a shaky breath. Gary’s betrayal is almost too brutal to even think about. “Fuck off,” he says. With renewed energy, he fights to stay upright in his chains, to hide what weaknesses he can.

 

Spock hums, a pleasant sound that buzzes in his ears. “Given Dr. McCoy’s sudden possessiveness of you, Jim, I am not sure that he will appreciate anything of the like between us.”

 

“Damn right, I wouldn’t,” Bones’s doppelgänger chuckles, stepping forward from the shadows.

 

Jim shudders, helplessly, as he approaches. He had all but forgotten he was there.

 

“But you, Captain?” McCoy says as smooth as butter, his eyes devouring him from head to toe. “Now that’s more my style.”

 

“Go to hell,” he says, throat tight, with as much strength as he can muster.

 

McCoy springs to the chair and grabs him by his hair, forcing his head back with a painful tug. “Now, that’s just not nice.”

 

Jim’s head snaps back, painfully, stars and white light bursting in his vision.

 

“Easy there,” McCoy says, drawl thickening. “Wouldn’t want you to pass out and miss out on what’s next.”

 

“You may have him, as I promised,” Spock says.

 

McCoy strokes Jim’s cheek and, just like his Bones would, holds his head still, with care, as his world continues to spin. “Wasn’t sure if you were going to keep your promise this time.”

 

“Since Kirk approves, I see no reason for my interference.”

 

“Must be my lucky day,” the doctor purrs, carding a gentle hand through Jim’s hair that feels so wrong but oh so right as his vision clears. “Hmm, pet?”

 

He finally catches on to what they’re saying, what McCoy’s thinking, the fingers massaging his skull like a lover would, the fact that Spock is undoing the restraints—and sucks in a horrified breath. “What?”

 

“Up, up, up!” McCoy says, lifting him out of the chair, his hands steadying Jim as he balances his weight on one leg. “It takes two to tango. You’re one, and I’m two.”

 

His heart plummets. He doesn’t really mean…? God, no. This isn’t what he'd wanted when he'd hoped for Bones’s affection—and this isn't the right Bones. “You’re sick,” he says shakily, unable to catch his breath.

 

But he won't beg. His instincts tell him begging won't gain him any favors.

 

McCoy’s brow arches with perfection. “Am I?”

 

“Yes,” he manages to spit out.

 

But the doctor’s sinister yet still beautiful, still familiar eyes swallow him whole.

 

He’s lost, for this is Bones, no matter which way he looks at it.

 

Even if _this_ Bones in _this_ universe is five years his senior, thirty-five to Jim’s thirty.

 

An older Bones, who swaggers with the wisdom his age brings him, who’s even more handsome at this age than the young, beautiful one who haunts Jim’s dreams.

 

He still can’t believe it.

 

“You _are_ sick,” Jim repeats, his voice weak, as he gathers up what strength he has left to speak.

 

“Maybe I am, but I promise you, you won’t forget it.” McCoy’s eyes are dangerous, fathomless and mesmerizing. “And neither will he, when he sees the damage, your precious Bones, who by the way, hasn’t told you much about himself, has he?”

 

He’s not sure what the hell he’s implying, but he’s past trying to understand anything that these two bastards are doing to him. Isolation, for one, and these mind games. Torture that is sometimes accompanied by—

 

No. NO. He can't go there. He can't—

 

“He doesn’t have to,” Jim grits through clenched teeth, wavering on his feet as he’s forced to stand there, beaten and on one foot, before them. “He has my trust without any strings attached.”

 

A brief look of remorse flashes over McCoy’s face, confusing Jim. “No strings, eh?” he says flatly.

 

It sends Jim’s heart pounding. He’s stunned that something other than sadism is lurking underneath the doctor’s sordid mask, something that hadn’t been there before—regret. “No.”

 

But then McCoy is in his face, his eyes flashing and raging, the cruel expression returning until it is all Jim can see—and maybe even wants from him. “Maybe this will change your mind about discovering his secrets,” the doctor snarls.

 

Before he can blink, McCoy’s lips are sinfully rough against his, powerful but tasting sweet like home, demanding and forcing his submission.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You really didn't think it was going to be that easy, Spock melding with Jim and getting rid of the Gary Mitchell problem now, did you? *cackles*
> 
>  
> 
> I've never written the Mirror Verse - and I think I'm hooked. Hopefully, I'll be inspired one day, maybe even with a spin-off of this story. I'm intrigued by an AOS Jim paired with Mirror!McCoy. 
> 
>  
> 
> Hope you all enjoyed the read. ;) And if you're confused now...that's to be expected. :D Thank you so much for reading! Please, review? :) Not sure when I'll post Part Two of this chapter, but I'm working on it. Unfortunately, I lost an entire scene and a half, plus a lot of other edits, the other day, thanks to some weird glitch with my iPad/Google Docs App. :( That stuff had been in Part Two, and it's just taking me longer to rewrite it, but I don't think it will be too long.


	5. 3.2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here are the rest of the pieces to the Mirror Verse puzzle, via an extra long chapter. Thank you to all who’ve been reading and commenting on this story so far, here and on Tumblr. I appreciate it more than you know!
> 
> The first scene occurs right after Jim beams to New Vulcan to see Spock, freaks out, and promptly returns to the Enterprise. It’s in Spock’s POV. Note that the scenes are mixed up a bit like before, with most of the scenes in the “past” placed in the middle section. I really don’t think it will confuse you after all is said and done. ;)  
>    
> I really couldn’t have done this without the help and encouragement from my beta readers, junker5 and diamondblue4, who are, hands down, two of the sweetest, kindest people I know.
> 
> WARNINGS: in the end notes - I do NOT want to spoil anything for this one.
> 
> If reading Mirror Verse isn’t your thing, and you’re reading this, you win an award for being a brave soul. I don’t get into the violence of this verse much at all, 98% of it is “off” camera, but there is a psychological element in play. Although there are several MV scenes, the one to really watch out for is #7 - Mirror Spock is much worse than Mirror McCoy, so just remember that. Gary is, too, for that matter, but that’s a given I think.
> 
> Hope you enjoy the extra long update. Note the new Hurt McCoy tag that I added. I don't write a whole lot of hurt!McCoy, but he deserves his own tag at this point. Thanks so much for reading!

***

 

3.2

 

***

  

 

It does not take him long to discern that something is wrong with Jim.

 

Four point five seconds after the captain requests to beam back to the Enterprise, Spock deduces that whatever has disturbed Jim is a direct result of his absent first officer, for he would have never allowed the captain to beam down to New Vulcan in his current, addled state alone.

 

He does not feel guilt, at least not to the extent that he would were he fully human. It is an awareness in his mind, an understanding that does not affect him. The probability is far greater that whatever disturbed Jim is not his fault but that of another being or circumstance.

 

He has not seen Jim in forty-nine days, but he has known him for six point two years. He is familiar with Jim’s signs of distress, responsible for discovering what is troubling the captain and efficiently dealing with them. Yet, there is another officer who is also responsible for the captain, perhaps one who is more adept than he is now to manage Jim’s needs.

 

He is disturbed that Dr. McCoy had allowed Jim to beam down to the planet in what appears to be a deeply unsettled state of mind. There had been fear in Jim’s eyes. First, as he’d faltered, and then as he saw Spock.

 

Jim has never feared him. Before they had become friends, the dissension between them had been fueled by misunderstandings and misconceptions. Never fear, nor intimidation.

 

“Spock? Shouldn’t we proceed with our preparations?”

 

He sucks in a breath upon realizing that he had walked up to and then beyond the spot where Jim had stood without consciously doing so. He whirls around to face Nyota, clenching his hands into fists at his sides in an effort to control them. The crew of the Enterprise had not been forthright with him.

 

And Nyota seems unconcerned with any of it.

 

“What. Just. Happened,” he asks her, fighting to repress the emotions that boil like lava beneath his skin.

 

It is a statement, not a question. He has lost too much control to enunciate the difference between the two.

 

Nyota straightens her spine, blinking at him with exaggerated care, as if she is waking up from a dream after being in his arms through the night. “Spock?”

 

He strides towards her, frustration fueling unprecedented anger when all he sees on her face is confusion. How can she not know? Does she not see it? How could she have ignored the pain in the captain's eyes? His defensive posture? His uncharacteristic stammering? “What has happened on the Enterprise to cause the captain to first stumble, then flee to his ship?”

 

“I don’t know what you mean,” she says.

 

She shrinks away from him when he is close enough to touch her.

 

And he does. His fingers fold around her arm before she can take a single step back. He notes, through the touch, an unusual sense of disconnect between them where there should be unity.

 

 _Danger_.

 

Someone has compromised his beloved, perhaps tampered with her mind. If this is true, the same could be said about Jim.

 

A myriad of emotions—uncertainty, love, fear—clash with one another and vie for his attention. He tamps them down, shielding from the others that pour from his intended bondmate. He has prepared for this day with meditation, and Nyota must meditate, as well. More importantly, he must resolve this mystery.

 

Jim needs him, and his Vulcan logic perhaps most of all. He suspects that his human emotions will prove to be worthless in this situation, unknown as it is.

 

He narrows his eyes on Nyota, though he does not have to focus for any length of time. He has already found what he seeks. “You fear me, Nyota, just like the captain.”

 

They are both afraid, despite his romantic attachment to Nyota and his brotherhood with Jim.

 

It is illogical, but it points to a logical conclusion. The cause for this change must be the same, though he does not know what this cause is.

 

His heart beats steadily, as he manages his apprehension with practiced control. “Why?”

 

The fear on her face intensifies with each passing second, as if the danger increases with time. Jim has returned to the ship in dubious mental health as they speak. Concerned she has not heard him, he squeezes her arm. “Nyota, answer me,” he insists. “You fear me. Why?”

 

She trembles under his touch. “I do? No, it’s…Spock..” she stops, but her eyes betray her.

 

She is frozen, unable to answer him. He suspects the same would have happened to Jim, had he not beamed back to the Enterprise.

 

The truth obstructed, but through no fault of their own.

 

He drops his hand, deciding to change his approach. “What has transpired on the Enterprise in my absence, Nyota?” he asks softly.

 

He considers what he knows about the function of the Enterprise in his absence, recalling what he’d read in the logs. Minimal facts, the captain’s own log absent of detail, the sparsity of detail hinting at a disconnection from the mission, itself.

 

He should have realized...

 

He should have noticed…

 

Nyota’s face pales, and she bites her lower lip. “The m-mission was...it was…it...fine, I think.”

 

She does not stammer, does not resort to habits that break the skin of her lip until it bleeds. Yet that is exactly what she has done.

 

He cannot allow himself to be swayed by her abnormal response. “Answer me truthfully,” he implores.

 

“I-I don’t know,” she whispers, horror falling across her face like a shadow, marring her pleasing appearance, and mirroring the distortion he senses beneath the surface. “I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t—”

 

“Enough,” he whispers, and pulls her close into an intimate embrace, one hand around her shoulders and the other hand wrapped tenderly around her head, pressing it against his shoulder.

 

He holds her still and protected against him, shielding her from what has harmed Kirk.

 

But only for a moment. His instincts tell him he must not delay, and he soon releases her. “We must meld.”

 

***

 

 

“Dr. McCoy, I thought you would be attending the ceremony today.”

 

He must be more scatterbrained than he thought because he has no idea what Ensign Barrow is talking about. He stops counting the doses in a new box of vaccines he’s sure he’d taken care of yesterday to look back at her. “Ceremony?” There’s none scheduled or planned that he can think of. “What ceremony?”

 

“The bonding ceremony on New Vulcan for Commander Spock and Lieutenant Uhura,” she says, glancing sideways at the nurse who brushes against her as she passes.

 

Eyes glazed over, she wavers on her feet though the nurse had hardly touched her.

 

Believing she is ill, and hoping she’s not drunk while on duty, he sets the vial he is holding on the shelf. “Ensign Barrow,” he asks, turning completely around to hold her by the arms. “Easy there. Why don’t I take a look?” He clears his throat when she doesn't reply. “Ensign Barrow?”

 

Her eyes slowly fill with recognition and she blinks at him. “No.”

 

He can’t take no for an answer. He feels drawn to her, but not in a romantic way. She knows something he doesn’t, and it doesn’t set well with him that he, a commanding officer, is in the dark. In fact, it’s damn confusing, especially when he can’t let it go.

 

“I insist,” he says. “Since you’re here.”

 

She stares silently at him. It's unnerving, and he can't figure out why she’s looking at him so strangely.

 

The thought slips away, unnoticed, as his mind starts to feel sluggish, thoughts reduced to pieces of confetti, like a package ripped apart by the massive hands of a Gorn. He cries out, in alarm, rubbing his throbbing temple with two fingers, slowly, in small circles. It doesn't help, and he grimaces as the pain spreads throughout his skull.

 

He feels like he’s jumping out of his own skin.

 

He has a feeling that this—being in sickbay and not with Jim—isn’t right.

 

His ears roar, and he falls, aimlessly, into his endless, circling thoughts, blindly grasping at them. If Jim’s not with him, where is he? In fact, where’s Spock? What the hell is happening to him? _Is_ there something happening to hi—

 

“Maybe you should sit down,” Barrow says.

 

He's not that weak, or maybe he's just too stubborn for his own good. “Just a little light-headed, that’s all.” Little, his ass. The room is spinning. He’ll most likely keel over if he doesn’t hold onto the ensign, who is acting more like one of his nurses than the science officer she’s supposed to be.

 

“What is happening?” He rubs his chest. If he can just relieve the blossoming pain, maybe he can breathe normally.

 

“You’ll need time,” she says, as if that’s the cure or the source of enlightenment he’s seeking. “Just like he will.”

 

He has no idea what the hell she means by that, and when he speaks again his voice is sandpaper rough. ”What do you—wait. Never mind. I’d rather know why you left your station to come here, to sickbay.”

 

“The ceremony.”

 

“Ceremony.” He squints down at her. “Right.” But there’s something about her being here, her presence, that’s changed something. He can feel it in the air.

 

He can’t put his finger on why, but Mitchell’s name comes to mind.

 

She nods like she’s read his mind. “Mitchell’s an ass.”

 

The random observation is true, and while he’s been uncharacteristically slow to understand what is happening, it coaxes a chuckle out of him. “Betazoid,” he says triumphantly.

 

If anyone would know if Mitchell’s an ass, it would be her.

 

She watches him warily.

 

The pain is lessening, and he thinks clearly enough to recall her arrival in Sickbay. “You almost fell.”

 

“An examination won’t be necessary,” she says, again, with a determined lift of her chin. “You feel it now, don’t you?”

 

His hands shake against her shoulders, or maybe it's the other way around. Uncharacteristically, he shrugs it off as a sign that he needs more sleep, rather than an alarming sign that the mystery he is trying to unravel isn’t as simple as he’d hoped. “What?” he asks.

 

She closes her eyes.

 

He rolls his eyes, feeling less than charitable when she ignores his question. He doesn’t have time for this awkward conversation. Mitchell had asked him to come to the bridge to discuss their next mission.

 

He also doesn’t understand why Barrow is being difficult. Maybe she really is sick. She had come to sickbay, after all. Making up his mind, he opens his mouth to ask her to sit on the nearest biobed, when he thinks of Mitchell again, for some unknown reason.

 

His mouth snaps shut. Maybe Mitchell will know what to do about her.

 

McCoy would consult Jim, but the captain has been having those damn nosebleeds much too frequently, and then there's the situation with Christine muddying the waters. Not to mention Jim’s harrowing ordeal, and the torture he'd endured, in the other universe.

 

He’d be lying if he said he isn’t a little jealous of the developing relationship between the two of them. He remembers Jim telling him that he was bisexual, so he can’t blame the man for falling for her. Christine is kind and smart, someone who would give Jim a run for his money, which might be what he needs in his life.

 

Dammit, he’s getting sidetracked again. He’s confused as to why he can’t resolve anything on his own anymore. He’s a doctor. He should know what to do. Maybe she really is ill—

 

He suddenly staggers back, eyes wide in shock when he realizes it hadn’t been of his own volition.

 

Another wave of invisible force bursts over him, from her direction, slamming him into the wall. He cries out in alarm and pain, tripping over his feet as he tries to stay upright. It’s a losing battle, and he crashes into several carts next to the shelving unit.

 

He falls, hard, onto his hands and knees, his breath knocked out of him, palms and kneecaps stinging.

 

But, slowly, he begins to think some sense has been knocked _into_ him. He takes several breaths before his racing heart even begins to slow down.

 

“Jesus, what was that?” he asks, each word shaking.

 

“You know what just happened,” Barrow whispers. “I finally broke free, and you have, too.”

 

“Free?” he croaks.

 

A cold sensation fills his chest.

 

Jim.

 

Mitchell.

 

Jim.

 

Mitchell.

 

That bastard that had had his same damn name, McCoy, and his just as evil, sidekick Spock.

 

 _Jim_.

 

He curses in every language he can think of, and the fog in his head that he didn’t know was there, begins to clear. It’s as if the sun is coming up, but it’s too bright, too much, too fast.

 

The knowledge is blinding.

 

“Oh shit,” he gasps, in Standard for good measure. He stares up at her through the strands of hair hanging down in his eyes. “Mitchell.”

 

Does he have _all_ of them under his thumb?

 

He hopes he’s wrong, because it’s cruel and it's sickening and fucking unbelievable. He’s not sure how they will ever overcome all of this. At least, not completely. How could they?

 

But he wants to be right, because it means he’ll finally be able to do his damn job and heal Jim in all the ways that he both needs and deserves.

 

(The man hasn’t had a break in months.)

 

(In fact, Jim had been manipulated, then dropped into the laps of psychopaths, one of while had professed to care for him, and then manipulated by Gary, again.)

 

(He’s never letting Jim leave the ship ever again.)

 

(He's locking him in his quarters for life.)

 

Fresh dread squeezes the breath out of him, because even that seems too simple.

 

“Barrow?” he rasps, absolutely everything that had happened over the past ten weeks now rushing back to him.

 

“Betazoid—and a telepath,” Barrow explains. “I apologize...for making you fall.”

 

“No apologies necessary.” He’s been trained to handle situations like this, and she’s probably used to finding out weird things about people, but it’s too much to take in. “Why us?”

 

“I’m not sure.” She extends her hand, and he’s grateful for her strength.

 

But, of course, she doesn’t answer the real question.

 

It doesn’t matter. He knows why Mitchell chose them. It’s _Jim_. Always Jim.

 

“Elizabeth?” He swallows with difficulty. He’d seen Barrow with the psychiatrist just yesterday, which had been odd. Elizabeth often spent her spare time with the Acting Captain, Mitchell. “I haven’t seen her today.”

 

Her lips purse. “I found her first, in the closet in her office. Left her there, then came to find you. The rest of the crew is under his control.”

 

The weight of her statement is one of the greatest burdens he’s ever known.

 

He grasps her hand, ignoring the prick of tears at the back of his eyes. “I’m sorry, but I thank you.”

 

“It’s my duty.” She helps pull him up to his feet with a small smile. The lines of stress, however, around her eyes have not yet receded. “Your face, Dr. McCoy.”

 

He senses it then, and shuts his eyes in shame.

 

“You couldn’t have helped it,” she says with a humorless laugh. He looks up at her in the same moment as she suddenly slumps against the wall. “None of us could. His power’s too great. He’s out of control. I think that’s why Dr. Dehner died.”

 

He lifts a brow, doubting that Elizabeth had just “died.”

 

Barrow stares at him. “You better take care of that.”

 

He grits his teeth, nods in agreement because what else is can he do? It’s unsightly—but he does it anyway.

 

He wipes a sleeve across his face, feeling as if he’s walking the plank, balancing precariously over the snapping mouths of crocodiles, in slow motion.

 

When he pulls his hand away, he hesitates. He doesn't look at it—he fucking can't—and he stares up at the ceiling like a coward.

 

“Look at it,” Barrow urges him, like she’s coaxing him to try a new flavor of ice cream, rather than acknowledge a side effect of mind control. “You'll feel better, sir.”

 

“It’s as simple as that, huh?” he asks hoarsely.

 

She shakes her head. “No. It’ll make you mad, then scream, and _then_ you’ll feel better. I promise. It’s what I did.”

 

He wants to scream but doubts he’ll feel better. Besides, he doesn't want to draw anymore attention from his staff than he already has. He looks down at his white lab coat, anyway. His once pristine, white lab coat, that is.

 

“Shit,” he breathes out, staring at the bright, red blood smeared across the sleeve.

 

“The captain’s back,” she goes on to say.

 

“What?” he asks, still shaken.

 

But so is she. He can’t imagine what she’d had to go through to break free from Mitchell’s psychic hold on her own. He also doubts they have much time before Mitchell comes looking for them. He can’t imagine the torture he’s inflicted upon Jim right under their noses—under _his_ nose.

 

For if he does imagine it, he’ll be sick. Probably for days on end, while wallowing in his guilt.

 

He wraps an arm around his stomach as the nausea swells to an unbearable level. He's torn between reacting emotionally like he wants to, and seeking vengeance. Or, whether to go about this logically and make things right for Jim with his head on straight, like a doctor should do.

 

He'll have to find something to counteract his symptoms before he finds Jim. “Jim. You know where he is?”

 

“He didn’t stay on New Vulcan. He came back just before I came to find you.” She pauses. “Alone, but I’m not sure for how long.”

 

He comms Spock, and is relieved to hear that he has just discovered the truth for himself—he had melded with Nyota, who had then passed out—before he rushes towards Jim’s quarters instead of the bridge. Barrow is hot on his heels.

 

Spock will take care of the rest of the crew, with help from several Vulcan healers. The first officer promises he will meet McCoy at Jim’s quarters as soon as he can.

 

As McCoy sprints down the corridor, he counts, in his head, the number of blood-streaked lab coats he’s thrown into the refresher since Mitchell boarded the Enterprise.

 

Fifteen.

 

 _Fifteen_.

 

(Well, if that isn’t a coincidence.)

 

(The thing is, it probably isn’t if Mitchell had a look into his brain.)

 

Still, he can’t think of a more perfect number.

 

If he has his way, he’ll personally throw that many punches at Mitchell—and possibly more—for screwing with his friends, for fucking with the man he’d sworn he’d protect but had ultimately failed.

 

For hurting, possibly irrevocably, the one person he held above all others.

 

***

 

“James,” Gary intones from his shared bathroom with Kirk, hiding out of sight of the cameras, not that it matters. His time here is running out, but he had bought himself a little more time by sending McCoy to the bridge. That bitch, Barrow, is ruining his well-laid plans. “Come here.”

 

“Yes, Captain.”

 

He revels in the way Jim obeys, mindlessly, leaving his living space to stand next to him in front of the sink.

 

“Look at me,” he commands, lifting Jim’s chin with a finger.

 

The captain raises his eyes, which have remained a startling and captivating blue, which surprises him. His own have turned milky white, remaining this way nearly all the time. Elizabeth’s had, too, but her mind had been too weak to share even half of Gary’s power and the white substance covering her eyes had oozed out at the end.

 

It’s a shame, really, that he’d had to leave her, dead on the cold floor of her office closer, after all their time together.

 

“Closer, Jimmy,” he murmurs, brushing his lips over his ear. “You remember how we were at the academy.”

 

Jim shivers but relaxes against him. Jim’s obedience thrills him, like it always has. He slips his arm around the back of his ex-lover’s perfect neck, curving his hand around the jugular. And obedience, like this, with Jim, is addictive.

He forces the captain’s head back with a lift of his chin, baring his neck just enough to show Jim who, exactly, is in charge. Once he allows Jim to have more awareness of his surroundings, and the control that Gary has over him, he hopes the captain will be enlightened and agree to join him. He’d never bothered with willing participants before, but Jimmy is different. Not that he hasn’t made him his puppet already.

 

Contrary to popular belief, and the “memories” that he’d planted in Chapel, Christine hasn’t even touched Jim.

 

It had all been Gary. Only him. There is no way he’d ever share this fine specimen of a human being. Now that Gary has become more alien than human, Jim is even more of a prize.

 

His lips curve into a self-satisfied smile. He wishes he could thank them in person, the alternate Leonard and Spock who’d twisted Kirk’s mind so deftly, enabling him to take the upper-hand once again, after the captain had returned to the Enterprise in tatters.

 

Dehner had been an invaluable addition to his plans, too, her wonder for the unknown and all things alien her downfall. At least she’d cleared Jim for duty, which ensured that McCoy wouldn’t fret over him with his usual concern. He’d had to do some damage control, too, within Kirk’s brain. It hadn’t been difficult to cut the strings to the manipulative Spock, and rid Kirk of the ridiculous chants the Vulcan had forced him to recite. Or remove many of the memories of the cruel doctor, for he wanted Jim to remember no one but him.

 

He languidly cards his free hand through Jim’s hair, smiling to himself. Now is the time. It won’t be long before they’re all here.

 

He reverses some of the control he has over the captain’s mind, delighting in the show. Jim is putty in his hands, has always been moldable, really. He’s captivated by the mere idea of watching Jim react to what he sees in the mirror. Gary, in control of him completely, again.

 

Yes, his time is running out, but he’ll enjoy this power while it lasts. The second they’d- he and his former crew- had crossed the barrier, they’d all been doomed, despite becoming the most powerful beings—aliens—in the galaxy. He imagines that his old crew will be dead by the time Starfleet finds them. Their altered minds wouldn't have been strong enough to cope with their new powers without his guidance and oversight. Even Elizabeth had eventually succumbed, her brain too damaged by her new power to survive, and she had been nearly his equal. Since he'd discovered that he had powers at the Academy, and had practiced them on Jim even then, he’d been able to withstand the effects of an alien control over his human body.

 

Jim’s eyes teem with confusion. “Gary?”

 

“Jim,” he says calmly.

 

He’s not surprised when Jim begins to struggle in his arms, but the past mind control keeps him weakened just enough that he can’t fight back and hold himself up so he doesn’t choke himself on Gary’s arm at the same time.

 

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” he tsks, coldly.

 

Jim stops his frantic movements, his face flushed. “Don’t...do this,” he rasps.

 

“You can join me,” he suggests, narrowing his gaze on Kirk’s eyes. He doesn’t like the contempt he sees in them.

 

Doesn’t he see that this will make things better? Make things right between them?

 

“No,” Kirk cries out.

 

Locking his jaw, he squeezes Kirk’s neck until he’s blue in the face, then eases his hold so he can breathe again.

 

Kirk gasps loudly, his eyes welling up with tears of reaction. “So this...h-has been...y-you all along?” he wheezes.

 

“I did have help,” he says, stroking Jim’s forehead and smiling. “I want you to remember all I did, before it’s over.”

 

The shock on Jim’s face is delightful, and he kisses him with enthusiasm, reveling in the taste of his skin. He should be jealous of the other McCoy, who'd somehow managed to gain both dislike and favor from Jim.

 

“Please, G-Gary—” Jim gurgles out.

 

He tightens the neck hold, silencing Jim, and intrudes on the captain’s mind to keep him docile in his arms. He’s growing tired of the show more quickly than he’d thought he would, but maybe he's just irritated by the presence outside the door.

 

“McCoy’s early,” he growls, his words muffled against the captain’s ear.

 

He guides an obedient Kirk out of the bathroom, to the middle of the captain’s quarters where they wait.

 

***

 

“I’ll make you a deal, since I know you have an insatiable sweet tooth. You finish the paperwork that’s piling up, and I’ll treat you to the ice cream I shouldn’t give you. Just the two of us. We can talk and get to know each other better, while you eat.”

 

Jim blinks owlishly at him. “You’re asking me on a date?”

 

He has to. He’s afraid that Chapel’s going to run away with the captain before he gets his chance. Not that he believes any of the horse shit she's been spouting, or not much of it, anyway. It’s now—or never.

 

“Bones?”

 

“Yeah, Jim,” he says, but his gaze falls and he looks down at his damn feet like a kid. “I am.”

 

Jim makes a small noise of disbelief. “I thought I was hearing things. That’s been happening a lot lately.” He hesitates. “I think.”

 

He understands the feeling. His days blend together. It's exhausting.

 

He shifts his weight from side to side, wondering if he’s about to be turned down. “Do you want to or not?” he asks.

 

“I—”

 

“Ready, Cap’n?” Scotty interjects. “Tha’ ion storm out there is a nasty one.”

 

“Yes, he is” McCoy says before Jim can reply, already having immediate second thoughts. “Let’s get this shit done.”

 

“Hey!” Jim frowns. “I didn't get to say yes.”

 

Somehow, his heart keeps beating at his answer. He swallows and reaches over to take Jim’s hand. He squeezes it, despite the fact that he gets a headache while doing so. “Tell me after we’re back, okay?”

 

The captain’s hand is warm, and reassuring, but he’s taking too many liberties. Jim’s skittish like a colt around him. He can’t hurry things.

 

Besides, Sulu and Chekov are behind them on the platform.

 

He lets go of Jim’s hand, and catches an incredulous look on the captain’s face before facing the front. He tries to decipher his expression, but their bodies are pulled apart.

 

“You gotta be kidding me,” Jim mutters beside him a few seconds later.

 

McCoy looks around, and is not amused. They’d materialized back onto their own transporting pad? After all those warnings? For nothing?

 

“Well, I guess you’ll have time to do all of that paperwork, after all, Jim,” McCoy drawls, wanting to soften the look of disappointment on Jim’s face.

 

The captain rolls his eyes. “Right. Scotty,” he says, nodding at the Scotsman at the console. “What seems to be the trouble?”

 

Scotty stands and stares at him. “You’re not him, are you?”

 

Jim exchanges a glance with McCoy. “Excuse me?”

 

“The cap’n. You’re not Kirk. He has a jagged, three-inch scar on his right cheek and a tattoo right above the collar. You’re as green as they come,” Scotty says, a peculiar gleam in his eye.

 

“Of course I’m Kirk, Scotty,” Jim says with a huff, moving to step off the platform.

 

“Stay right there,” Scotty orders.

 

Jim tenses, but after glancing sideways at McCoy again, reading his wary look, falls back a step. “Come again?”

 

Scotty rounds the console aggressively and points a phaser at them. “Drop the weapons, kick them over to me. I wouldn't try anything. Mine’s set to kill.”

 

McCoy isn’t carrying a weapon, but Jim has two he throws on the ground with a scowl, followed by Chekov and Sulu. Jim kicks all four to Scotty’s doppelgänger.

 

Seemingly satisfied, Scotty opens his communicator but keeps both eyes locked on them. “Scott to Bridge.”

 

“ _Yes, Mr. Scott.”_

 

McCoy inches forward when Scotty is momentarily distracted, but freezes when he hears Spock’s ice-cold voice, and then Jim’s, cautioning him.

 

“Bones,” Jim hisses. “Wait.”

 

He obeys, but grinds his teeth in frustration. There will be no easy way to get out of this, despite the odds, four against one. He has a bad feeling about doing nothing, but he won’t go against Jim’s wishes. He’s been in rough spots before, but he’s no tactician.

 

“We have a few visitors, including a look-alike or two,” Scotty sneers into the comm. “You better get down here.”

 

“ _Fascinating. Take them to the brig. The agony booth is functioning optimally today.”_

 

“Shit,” Jim mutters under his breath.

 

“Of course, sir,” Scotty says, grinning like a maniac as he closes, then pockets his comm.

 

McCoy takes a step, placing himself in front of Jim. “This is all a mistake. If you’ll just help us get back to our ship—”

 

“You’re damn right this is a mistake.” Scotty sneers. “Yours.”

 

A helpless cry is ripped from his throat as Scotty fires on them all.

 

He slumps to the floor, unconscious, Jim falling to the floor beside him, hitting the platform with a sickening smack.

 

***

 

McCoy doesn’t just simply kiss Jim. He possesses his mouth, doesn’t break for a breath until unconsciousness threatens to pull Jim under.

 

The overwhelming mix of pain and passion and surrender has an unwanted effect on Jim. He’s limp in McCoy’s arms, mortified that his attraction to the doctor—to the Bones that isn’t this man—has been twisted and manipulated to benefit a sadistic stranger.

 

“Huh,” McCoy says with a self-satisfied smile, glancing down at Jim’s pants’ front. “How about that? Happens to the Kirk, here, too,” he drawls.

 

He can’t look at this McCoy without wanting to vomit. He doesn’t know if Bones had even made it out of the transporter room alive. Or if Chekov and Sulu survived.

 

He wonders if this McCoy will even last another year on the Enterprise, if he doesn't play his cards right.

 

“Bones,” he rasps, wanting McCoy’s attention, to get him to listen to him. He’s sure he saw something in Spock’s mind that could help him, something that he—Jim—could use as a bargaining chip.

 

“I ain’t him, kid,” McCoy scoffs. “Nor do I want to be.”

 

The worried glance he sends Spock tells Jim differently. He swallows hard, wondering if this McCoy harbors some true affection after all for his Kirk, or if it's mostly sadistic?”

 

His captors haven’t said a word about the young doctor, or Sulu, or Chekov.

 

But maybe they had. He wrinkles his brow, recalling that they must have. Now, however, the memory seems to be missing. He can’t pinpoint why, but he thinks a few other things are missing, as well.

 

The realization reminds him how helpless he really is, and how dangerous they are.

 

This universe is the most terrifying thing he’s ever experienced. And given the fact that he’s experienced more than his fair share of alternate universes since becoming captain, that’s saying a lot.

 

To be bodily harmed, tortured, and pulled apart by his closest friends’ evil lookalikes—this isn’t his Bones, this isn’t his Spock, he reminds himself again and again— _is a fucking nightmare._

 

Reality is slipping away from his grasp, and he has no escape plan, no way of even knowing if his crew will be able to find them.

 

Worse, he doesn't know if Bones is still alive. It terrifies him to think that he's dead. He’s not sure he’ll survive his way back, if his Bones does not.

 

He shakes his head, a poor attempt to clear the malignant cloud thickening in his mind. It feels like hours have passed, maybe an entire day. Maybe more. He’s exhausted and spent, both physically and psychologically. He can hardly stand, they’d seen to that by breaking his leg, the bastards. But letting himself sag, his body limp in the cuffs is entirely too painful. Every movement is excruciating, but Gary’s betrayal is the most devastating.

 

Not only does he belong to Gary, like a puppet belongs to his master, but he’s to be this Spock’s toy as well.

 

Nausea rolls in his stomach in overwhelming waves, and he barely stops himself from vomiting. He’s learned, fast, that weakness means death. But with each meld it’s getting more difficult to keep resisting, as his sanity is stripped away, layer by layer.

 

Spock’s doppelganger arches a brow as he coldly surveys Jim’s groin. “As tempting as that is with such a fine specimen as yourself, I do not think your Dr. McCoy would appreciate it if we dallied—”

 

“You better not have hurt him,” Jim warns, straining in his chains in vain, an unexpected rush of adrenaline giving him strength.

 

“Oh?” Spock’s expression is bored, but Jim shivers at how empty it really is. This Vulcan in front of him is the coldest, cruelest being he’s ever come in contact with, his dark beard adding to his sinister appearance.

 

Spock.

 

His friend.

 

Not his friend.

 

He can hardly imagine a world where all of his crew, every single one of his friends, are evil - like _him_.

 

It makes his heart _ache_.

 

“Please, Captain.” Spock tsks. “It is more gratifying to torture him psychologically, as he is quite aware that we are experimenting on you, our greatest test subject.”

 

He stops, hope and relief warring within. “He’s alive?”

 

He nearly groans when he realizes how much that reveals, and the mistake he'd made.

 

McCoy manhandles him against the wall, then let's go. “He’ll wish he was dead when he sees you. That’s torture enough.”

 

“You won’t have me under your thumb forever,” Jim rasps, struggling to stand.

 

“Indeed, I am counting on it.” Spock steps forward until he is but a hairsbreadth away, his dark eyes glittering dangerously, boring into his soul. “Chekov may be trying to figure out a way to return you to your ship, but let me remind you that we are in control. You, Jim, are not.”

 

“Are you done playing around with him?” McCoy asks, crossing his arms, with one shoulder against the wall.

 

Jim can't believe how much the posture of this McCoy mimics his Bones, on his ship, when the young CMO is relaxed and talking to Jim when they're off duty.

 

Spock looks back at McCoy, arching a sinister brow. “You are more impatient than usual.”

 

“I want all the time I can get with him,” McCoy sneers, staring openly at Jim.

 

“The three days you have had isn't enough?”

 

McCoy’s jaw clenches. “No. Have you _looked_ at him? He’s even more handsome than Jim. I want those gorgeous eyes focused on _me_. They're even bluer than Jim's.”

 

Jim can’t help but shiver, the implications sickening him.

 

“In that case, I shall leave you alone.” Spock smirks, and exits the room.

 

When the door slides shut behind the Vulcan, McCoy manhandles Jim back into the chair that had somehow transformed into a bed without him noticing.

 

He must be completely out of it, he thinks.

 

His stomach drops to the floor when the restraints are enabled and he’s flat on his back, at the mercy of practiced, cruel hands once again.

 

McCoy pins him down with a cool stare, his gaze traveling up and down his body. “I’m going to give you something for the pain.”

 

The warmer bedside manner takes him by surprise. “What?” He swallows harshly. “W-why?”

 

“Has anyone ever told you not to look a gift horse in the mouth, kid?” McCoy turns away, not bothering to wait for a reply, to grab a hypo from the counter. “It’s simple. You’re Kirk.”

 

He doesn’t see anything simple about it. He’s not Kirk, at least, he’s not this McCoy’s Kirk. (He wonders if Kirk is older than McCoy, but he doubts it, from the way they discuss their captain.) “Why?” he asks again.

 

The doctor glares at him and administers the hypo with a heavy hand. “Why do you think, you idiot? You're Jim. His Jim, my Jim, doesn't matter.”

 

His brain can’t keep up. “You’re not...n-not…” His body begins to tremble uncontrollably. “W-what did you d-do to m-m-me?”

 

McCoy’s jaw firms, a soft hesitancy on his face as he curls his hand around Jim’s.

 

Jim hates himself when he doesn't struggle, just lets McCoy do what he seems determined to do, threading his fingers through his, like it’s a natural gesture on his part.

 

The doctor's hand is warm and familiar and possessive and dangerous, but he can't deny it’s comforting. It's a piece of home, like the kiss. He's frozen, his mind conflicted, as he struggles to choose between fighting against McCoy’s touch like he should or accepting the comfort he shouldn’t want.

 

But he misses Bones. _His_ Bones.

 

McCoy’s expression morphs into a mixture of fire and determination, sending his heart pounding and confusing him again. “Like I said, I gave you something for the pain.” He pauses, waves his hand at his body. “This, the shaking? It’s all you, kid.”

 

He’s not feeling comforted anymore.

 

In fact, he’s trying to convince himself that he's not more terrified than ever.

 

“You’re in shock,” McCoy murmurs, and wipes something from the corners of Jim’s eyes. “You haven't slept much at all since you got here, you know. Your body can't take much more torture. Spock won't allow me to fully treat your injuries.”

 

He closes his eyes, mortified by McCoy’s unexpected concern but mostly ashamed of  
the moisture leaking from his eyes. Tears? Now? He can't believe he’s letting himself fall apart, not holding himself together. He knows better than to show weakness, especially in front of a monster that thrives on the discomfort of his victims.

 

And he just handed Bones’s doppelgänger a hell of a lot to use against him.

 

“I’m not gonna rape you, Jim,” the monster says quietly.

 

He must be losing his mind. He's certain that his mind is misfiring. “Wha?” he mumbles, his tongue clumsy and strangely heavy in his mouth.

 

“Spock will never know, because I won’t let him find out, but you’re going to have to act the part.” McCoy slaps his cheek, as his eyes start to close. “Hey, look at me, kid. Eyes on me.”

 

But he can’t, it's all too much, and he refuses to look at the man who’d showed him how it felt to kiss Bones, to be tortured by his skilled hands, only to now be spared?

 

“You’re fuck’d up,” he slurs.

 

McCoy flashes him a smile, a sad, not evil smile that reveals a thick crack in his armor. “I’ve heard that one before.”

 

His eyes won’t stay open, but he wants them to. He wants to look this McCoy straight in the eye and demand the truth. He wants to know if McCoy loves his Jim to a degree so great that he can’t hurt _any_ Kirk?

 

For it can't be Jim. Surely, it can't be him. “Wha...giv’me?”

 

“A sedative, along with the painkiller,” he says, shrugging. “I’ll keep him outta here for a couple of hours. Kirk and I will get your crew out of here, at the hobgoblin’s expense. It's about time I got Spock back for betraying Kirk to the Klingons a few years ago. We found him and returned him to his rightful place on the Enterprise, but not without paying a hefty price,” he mutters. “Kirk is laughing his ass off about now, but I can’t tell you where he is. That’s between him, and me, and Scotty.”

 

Jim manages to pry his eyes open and stare at McCoy one last time before the sedative overtakes him.

 

McCoy eyes are too serious, too dangerous, too much like Bones’s. “You wanna know why I’m doing this? You’re making me goddamn soft, too distracted to think about what I should actually be doing to you. I don't care what Spock thinks, and I have no idea how you’re doing that to _me_. I wish I had time to find out, but I don't have that luxury.” McCoy smiled. “I need you to trust me, Jim.”

 

He’s nearly asleep, the brush of Bones’s lips against his cheek an angel’s reverent touch.

 

And maybe he is, maybe Bones, _this_ Bones, is his angel.

 

“Bones,” he mumbles desperately. “Don’t go’way.”

 

McCoy sighs softly. “I’ll get you out of here, Jim. I’ll get you and your Bones, and your crew, out of this hell. God knows, you shouldn't be here. But promise me one thing.”

 

He strains to listen.

 

What is he saying?

 

“Don't be too mad at your Bones, when the time comes.”

 

Silence.

 

His breath evens out, his mind wandering. He floats in a bottomless dark ocean. Lost, but not quite alone.

 

What does he mean? When the time comes?

 

“Forgive him, alright?” McCoy laughs, a dark sound heard in nightmares. “If you can kiss me like it's the last kiss you'll ever have, as if you really want to kiss me, I'm sure you can find it in your heart to forgive him. Maybe not right away, but someday.”

 

He's getting used to this McCoy’s husky drawl, and wonders if his Bones’s voice will eventually deepen a little more, just like this.

 

“Why am I even telling you this? I should just say that we McCoys have to stick together. But that's not true. It's you, kid. You deserve happiness in your world.”

 

He's not sure he'll ever get back there.

 

If he doesn't, if his Bones is gone—the thought makes him cry out in pain—what’s left for him in this place? An Empire, with no kindness or love or compassion. Only death, pain, and despair.

 

He knows it's wrong, that something in his head isn’t right—remembers that Stockholm Syndrome distorts a victim’s thinking and he's a victim now, his injuries also draining his common sense—but there's only one thing he _would_ do.

 

Stay with him, to survive, to be loved, in the only twisted way this McCoy can love.

 

A steady hand strokes his head, and if he imagines it hard enough, it's Bones, soothing him while they lie in bed together. A dream come true, for a time. “Shh, it'll be alright, Jim,” Bones whispers.

 

Comforted, and even knowing who is with him, he welcomes the darkness and the respite that comes with it.

 

And when he awakens again, there is no warmth or promises or soft pleas to forgive.

 

There's crippling fear in the pit of his stomach—and the cruel and fathomless eyes of the other Spock, locked on his face.

 

***

 

When McCoy wakes up, he’s on a cold floor, alone, and surrounded by walls of white and glass.

 

It's an exact copy of the brig on the Enterprirse.

 

The realization exacerbates his splitting headache, and he flinches away from the bright light, wanting to close his eyes and wait for the pain to ebb before he starts moving. But common sense tells him to get up and assess the situation. He can’t remain in a vulnerable position when his captors show up.

 

He staggers to his feet, his body lethargic and muscles stiff from misuse, groaning from the effort.

 

He suddenly freezes.

 

The muffled sound he makes isn't quite right.

 

Disoriented, he reaches up and discovers that his face is burdened by cold, heavy steel. He follows the design, his fingers frantic when it seemed endless. A device of some sort is attached to his jaw, winding around the back of his head to the other side of his face, and he can't open his mouth at all. When it dawns on him that he’s actually wearing a type of muzzle, he’s furious and desperately tugs at it. They’d shut him up, limiting his voice, his chances to find Jim, or even comfort the captain if he’s in one of the other cells.

 

It’s just one more indication that these people are complete barbarians.

 

This is torture, without the physical pain, but just as cruel. Knowing that he can’t communicate, to comfort Jim, or call for help, or talk to Sulu and Chekov, does more than sicken him. He's _angry_.

 

He attempts to free himself from it until his arms and shoulders ache, and his fingers are raw, trying in vain to find a clasp or something that he can pry open to break free.

 

“It won’t do you any good,” an oh-so-familiar voice drawls, a voice only changed by time.

 

His winces involuntarily. Fuck, facing himself at this age is surreal.

 

Resigned that the face-off is going to occur, he takes a deep breath. He’s feeling far from composed, doesn't want to be reminded of his own damn nightmare, one that he's constantly living, but he manages to look up at the man with a calm, collected expression that belies his mangled emotions.

 

He’s even more sinister than he’d expected him to be, hardened around the edges. Even more alarming is seeing the truth.

 

This McCoy is thirty-five, danger oozing off of him in waves.

 

McCoy Two folds his arms. “So, this is awkward.”

 

McCoy glowers at him and gets to his feet. He walks up to the glass and pounds on it with a white-knuckled fist.

 

The other McCoy raises a brow. “Oh, they won’t hear you, obviously, but you’ll hear them. I mean, Kirk.”

 

He'll hear Kirk? What does that mean? What are they going to do to Jim? Torture him? Kill him?

 

Oh, God, they can’t—

 

Panicking, he pounds on the glass again, kicks the barrier when the bastard simply stares back at him.

 

But the doppleganger’s gaze is razor sharp as he sweeps over Bones from head to toe in a leisurely inspection. “You volunteered to go to Pant’igna, didn’t you?”

 

He freezes, unclenching his fist, his palm flattening against the glass.

 

_Pant’igna_

 

He wishes to forget that cursed planet.

 

It's impossible.

 

The other man nods. “Yeah,” he says mockingly. “Looks like you—and probably a few others—fell for that sob story of theirs. A pity.”

 

His throat tightens.

 

He doesn't want to be reminded of that.

 

Yet, if their places had been switched, he'd probably bring it up, too. It's a logical question between two McCoys who'd made vastly different choices.

 

“Looks like you've adapted pretty well,” his doppelgänger says evenly. “Survived. Moved on. I don't envy you, though, because it looks like you're not quite with the program when it comes to Jim.”

 

There's a deliberate pause, then he continues, “Speaking of the captain, it's unfortunate Spock has a tendency to hurt ours for his fucking amusement whenever he can. So, just for the record, I’ve never liked the agony booth, and I’ve _always_ liked Kirk,” McCoy Two states with a wry grin.

 

A growl erupts from his throat, and he slams the glass as hard as he can, silently screaming at him that he can't lay a hand on his Jim.

 

“He’ll live. I'll make sure of it,” McCoy Two states, without the emotion that the words promise. “You, on the other hand, are staying here, per Spock’s orders. I guess that's torture enough for you, isn't it?” He waves a casual hand towards him. “On top of all this wonderful hospitality, you probably resent your choice every day.”

 

It is then, as his eyes snap to meet those of the other McCoy, anger simmering in his bloodstream, that the high-pitched, throat-tearing screaming begins down the corridor.

 

His eyes close and tears finally spill down his cheeks.

 

 _Jim_.

 

The other McCoy just walks away. Leaving him to hell.

 

***

 

Jim stares at Spock, his chest flooding with suffocating, debilitating panic. McCoy had promised, had _promised_ him that this wouldn’t happen.

 

Had McCoy simply manipulated him to feel safe, at peace just so they can break him again? It hurts nearly as much as the physical pain they’d inflicted.

 

McCoy enters through the door behind them and glares at the back of Spock’s head.

 

“Goddammit, Spock, I told you to wait for me,” McCoy complains, striding to the Vulcan’s side, but not before flashing a worried glance at Jim.

 

It's genuine, but Jim can hardly swallow, his throat right with fear. He tries not to show it, but he knows he’s shaking, his traumatized body weak from being deprived of both medical care and food.

 

“He is a prisoner. He does not require both of us to be present,” Spock counters. “I only wish to discover his limits. His mind intrigues me.”

 

Only? Oh, God. Spock can’t meld with him again. He’s not sure he can take another session.

 

“Like his body captivates me?” McCoy asks, his eyes now hard, nothing like they were before.

 

“That is a fascinating parallel, Doctor,” Spock muses.

 

The Vulcan’s expression is eerily content, and Jim relies on his training and does everything he can to ignore it. To just think.

 

He has to find a button to push, anything to stall the Vulcan from melding with him again. He can’t depend on McCoy to help him. He’s not sure he can believe the doctor, that he's only pretending to be just as cruel as Spock. But if that isn’t true, that means McCoy is lying, and there is no chance that Jim can depend on him for help.

 

He’s on his own.

 

It’s not like he’s never been alone before.

 

But he has to be careful as he strategizes. Maybe he’s like their Jim, maybe he’s not. They’ve already proven intuitive in how to deal with him and inflict the most pain in a minimal amount of time.

 

There’s nothing more for him to do, other than be tougher, taunt back.

 

He thinks he can find a way to do that if McCoy can be trusted.

 

If McCoy can actually get him out of here, or at least free his crew, it will be worth the risk of trusting that this not-Bones actually cares what happens to him.

 

Spock’s lips thin in a feral smile. “How is that, exactly, Captain?”

 

Jim coughs, tasting blood. “You told me what he’s doing.” He coughs again, his chest heaving, and it is a deep wet cough that causes his chest to flare brightly with pain. He forgets to maintain the facade of endurance and closes his eyes, for a respite. “I know,” he says hoarsely. “What he’s, what Gary’s done.”

 

McCoy’s breath is hot on his cheek, on his neck, moving slowly, insidiously, to his lips. He takes his time, placing deep passionate kisses on his lips, stopping only long enough to nibble and lick the tender skin. “Not all,” the doctor taunts.

 

His body is too exhausted to resist, and remembering what McCoy had told him before, he submits to the doctor while hating himself for it. “Still, it’s somethin’,” he slurs, eyelids drooping in shame when McCoy’s touch becomes pleasurable, sparking desire, despite efforts to resist.

 

But a steely grip, fingers digging without mercy into his jaw, breaking the moment, forces him to open his eyes.

 

“You are overly confident,” Spock hisses, as he turns Jim’s head towards him and out of the reach of McCoy’s hands and lips. “You must be taught your place, Captain.”

 

The Vulcan’s cruel fingers slide upward, pressing deeper into his face, like claws.

 

He doesn't even get a chance to fight back, has no time to prepare for another mental onslaught, but he hears McCoy’s surprising protest. “Fuck, Spock, do you have to—”

 

He’s suddenly swept away under a tsunami of nothingness, left limp like a ragdoll in its wake.

 

Submission.

 

He’s never liked it. He doesn't like it now, either. He doesn’t know which way is up, down, across, or—

 

Spock actually chuckles. It’s cruel and dark and everything his own first is not. “Forget.”

 

“Stop,” he groans, helpless to prevent his memories, of what Gary had done, from fading. “N-n-no. Don’t. P-please. Wh-what are you doing?”

 

“Forget,” Spock chants.

 

He feels strange.

 

Odd.

 

Like he’s losing something vital.

 

He tries to pry his eyes open, but he can only manage opening them into narrow slits. It's like looking at the world through a shrinking tunnel.

 

But it comes back to him, suddenly. “Gary,” he mumbles, blearily watching his captor.

 

“It will soon be over,” Spock soothes, but there is something wrong about his voice. “Forget.”

 

His mind bends at the command. He can feel it. He watches it.

 

He feels loose and free, without his strings.

 

Without attachment.

 

Just... _free_. “Ga -arr -yeeeeee.”

 

“Spock, dammit, stop! I told you before that he could die,” McCoy protests.

 

“Forget,” Spock’s doppelgänger repeats, a sudden glimpse of his cold eyes shooting daggers of fear into his heart.

 

The black, implacable gaze terrifies him, and his mind bends yet again. “Ga,” he says, the cry a weak moan in his ears. “Gaaaah—”

 

“Forget.”

 

His mouth won’t work. Why? “Gaaah,” he says, but he doesn't know what he’s trying to say.

 

“ _Forget_.”

 

“Gaa,” he slurs, smiling at the playful sound of the word.

 

“Jesus,” McCoy whispers. “Spock, you’ve done enough—”

 

“Gaa,” he repeats.

 

 _Gaa_.

 

What is it?

 

What is up?

 

What is a Humpty?

 

“Yess, captain,” Spock whispers. “Tell me.”

 

He opens his mouth to speak, to obey.

 

But no words come.

 

He’s forgotten them.

 

 

“I will never forgive you for this, you bastard,” McCoy hisses. “Neither will the captain.”

 

 

“Forget,” Spock whispers into his ear, his hand slowly manipulating his head back and forth, and around, like he would a doll’s head.

 

The movement relaxes him, and Jim is happy to be toyed with if that’s what he wants to do, to teach him.

 

“Be consumed,” Spock breathes, like a caress. “Remember _this_.”

 

And his world implodes.

 

He’s left in McCoy’s arms, his mouth gaping open and a series of litanies forced continuously, mindlessly, from his lips.

 

 

***

 

When Dr. McCoy enters Jim’s private room in sickbay, he’s stopped short by the sight of both Mitchell and Dehner, speaking with Nurse Chapel.

 

It’s only been two days since they had escaped that cursed universe, and he doesn’t recall authorizing any visitors while Jim is recovering. Not even the Acting Captain.

 

He scowls, making his presence known by clearing his throat, softly, as not to disturb Jim. Three surgeries to heal the internal wounds, plus his leg. He’d have to be off his feet for a few more days, but modern medicine will have the captain up and on his feet soon. Frankly, McCoy couldn't be happier knowing that it won't be long before Jim is back in the captain's chair. He can’t put his finger on it, but the fact that Mitchell hasn't been as bad as he’d expected, as Boyce had made him out to be, doesn't sit right to him. He clearly recalls the bad history between Mitchell and Jim, and he can’t ignore that. But Mitchell has done nothing abnormal. Maybe he had moved on, matured. Still, he has to exercise caution, especially where Jim’s concerned.

 

He sighs, heavily, when the two uninvited guests fail to take the hint. “Visiting hours are over,” he announces. “He needs his rest.”

 

He has to give him credit. Mitchell doesn’t bat an eye, but answers smoothly. “I only wanted to see for myself how he was doing. According to your reports, it had been—”

 

“Hell,” McCoy interjects in a tight voice, as he stands at Jim’s bedside.

 

“I can't imagine the pain he went through. If there's anything I can do—

 

He shuts Mitchel down with a quick, “Sure,” before returning his focus to Jim.

 

And he ignores the psychiatrist altogether, but Elizabeth, who’d grown even more beautiful the past two years, ignores him, too.

 

What would they talk about? A planet that had thrown them each a curveball in life? The fact that they’d known each other quite well, but not the in way Jim is thinking? Their mutual, miserable existence? The fact that they both wish they’d never even met one another in the first place?

 

If they hadn’t, things would be a hell of a lot different now. He won’t go as far as saying things would be normal, because, much like Jim’s, his life had never been normal.

 

But at least he’d be comfortable in his own skin.

 

He scans Jim’s most recent charts, frowning when he sees an irregular reading of his kidneys. “Nurse Chapel,” McCoy says, easing Christine from the conversation she’s having with Dehner, “I’d like to run another urine analysis. Also, we’ll increase his pain medication by 20 mgs. I won't be keeping him sedated him much longer.”

 

“Of course, Doctor,” Chapel says, quickly resuming her duties as Mitchell and Dehner quietly leave. She glances sideways at him, bites her lip.

 

Just great. He knows this is about her, being in this room, the same room as Jim. “Yes,” he sighs. “What is it, Chris?”

 

“I don’t mind assisting you while the captain’s a asleep, but I’m not sure I’ll be comfortable doing that when he’s awake.”

 

He starts to think Chapel isn’t fit for life on a tin can. That maybe he’s more adapted than she is. Him, the aviophobic starship Doctor. He hadn't seen that coming.

 

“If that’s your attitude, you can leave now,” he says shortly, turning his back to her.

 

“I didn’t mean—”

 

He pivots on his heel, and throws her a sharp look. “Christine, Jim’s been through hell and back, only to be dragged through hell again. I heard him screaming like a banshee for an hour straight, at least five different times while we were there. And those are just the torture sessions I was aware of. He needs proper care, and the utmost compassion. Doesn’t seem like you’re going to be able to provide that.” He pauses, grinds his teeth together. “You’re dismissed.”

 

Her mouth gapes open, and she laughs nervously as if to hide it. “Maybe I can tr—”

 

“No,” he barks. “You’re done here. Nurse Gable will take your place.”

 

She doesn’t respond, and he’s grateful she holds her tongue. He has a feeling they would just talk in circles if he let her stay.

 

But Jim deserves better.

 

When Nurse Gable, a woman in her late twenties, enters the room, he’s finally at ease. He appreciates her gentle manner, as well as her efficiency as she tends to the captain’s needs. Her husband had passed away before the Enterprise had departed for the five-year mission. He thinks that the soft spoken brunette pours herself into her work to cope with her grief.

 

Jim’s restless as the evening progresses, and after another round of the dermal regenerator, McCoy’s satisfied that Jim won’t freak out when he sees the healing wounds on his body. The scars will be raw-looking for awhile, and the scarring that will set in. They’ll eventually disappear, with more treatment.

 

He’s not sure the mental scars will be that easy to erase.

 

Mitchell doesn’t visit again, but McCoy asks security to stand by the door, nonetheless. He doesn’t know exactly what had happened to Jim, but he has an idea. He’s not sure if Jim will be mentally stable when he awakens, a threat to himself or others. He has to take precautions.

 

He’s there when the captain opens his eyes the next afternoon, for the first time since they’d escaped that twisted universe.

 

The wait has been excruciating.

 

He’s scared witless that he won’t see any clarity in those baby blues, like the first time he’d awakened. But he takes one look at the captain’s face—and sees the recognition he’s hoped to find reflecting from them.

 

It’s a good sign. It’s a start, at least.

 

“Captain?” he asks softly. “Do you know where you are?”

 

The captain’s lethargy is to be expected, but it takes a moment before Jim can collect himself to speak.

 

Jim moistens his lips, shuts his eyes. “Enterprise?” he rasps.

 

“Yes. Do you know your name?” he asks, leaning over Jim to adjust his medication on the computer display.

 

Jim jerks away, although he hasn’t touched him. “P-please, Bones,” he begs brokenly. “N-no, Bones.”

 

McCoy arches back and straightens his spine. He should have thought of that.

 

He steps away from the bed and nods. “Okay. No one will touch you unnecessarily, I promise. I'll just sit here, with you. Is that okay?”

 

Jim barely nods.

 

He gives him a small smile. “I'll take it that's a yes.” He pulls up a chair as Jim studies him. “Do you know your name?” he asks again.

 

Jim blinks several times, shivers under the covers. “Are we really back here?”

 

“Yes,” he says gently. “Your name,” he asks again.

 

Jim swallows with obvious effort. “Name’s Jim, Jim the idiot, to you, anyway,” he breathes out, wincing when he raises his right arm. “Getting us trapped there.”

 

He makes a mental note to tell Dehner, the psychiatrist who will be treating Jim, that the captain’s already battling with guilt. “Jim, no one could’ve seen that one coming.”

 

“I should've.”

 

“It's not your fault.”

 

Jim looks away. “How’s Sulu?” he asks hoarsely, deflecting. “Chekov?”

 

“Better than you,” he says, not unkindly.

 

It may have been the wrong thing to say, because Jim chokes on a sob. “You’re not joking?”

 

“No, Jim.”

 

“Th-they’re okay? We’re really here, on the ship?”

 

He cocks his head, fighting to keep his hand from reaching for Jim’s, in an attempt to ground him to the here and now. “I don’t think I’d be this happy if we were, do you?”

 

They both pause, staring at each other silently, and he’s suddenly hopeful that Jim will be able to heal from his ordeal better than he’d thought.

 

A tiny smile finally cracks the captain’s ever-present mask. “No, guess not.”

 

“Do you want to talk about it?”

 

Jim sucks in a breath.. “Not really.”

 

“That’s to be expected, for now,” he says, then decides to inform him of his physical state. “Your leg—”

 

“My leg?” He frowns. “Broken, right?”

 

“Not anymore,” he tells him. “It’s healed nicely, but I’m more worried about the rest of you.”

 

He doesn’t mention his mental status.

 

Jim nods, but his expression grows distant. As the captain’s attention drifts, McCoy suspects that Jim will be sleeping soon.

 

He lets the rest go, for now.

 

Jim stares up at the ceiling. “How...how did it happen? Getting there, I mean.”

 

“Ion storm,” he says patiently. “Or were you so tortured that you don’t remember even that much?”

 

Jim’s gaze shifts, and he stares at him, open mouthed. He closes it, then gives a short laugh. “Shit, Bones, your bedside manner needs some work.”

 

“Wanted to see if you were there.”

 

He’s not surprised when the captain’s eyes tear up.

 

“Son of a…” Jim sniffs, and takes a moment to compose himself. “Yeah,” he rasps. “Wouldn't want to miss out on that ice cream.”

 

McCoy honestly can’t believe he remembers that. He reaches, then, for Jim—but the captain stiffens, his eyes shooting wide-open in absolute terror, as if he’s seen a ghost.

 

And, he supposes, Jim really has...

 

“Oh, God,” Jim says, his voice crushed with immeasurable pain. “N-no t-touch-h-he-Bones,” he babbles with an anguished cry. “No-t-touch, th-ey...d-did t-me-”

 

It simply devastates him to watch him panic and retreat, but he’ll do whatever it takes to help Jim get through this. “Okay, it’s okay, Jim, I understand. No touching,” he says, raising his hands in surrender. “See?”

 

Jim’s eyes wander wildly about, like he expects someone else to try to grab him.

 

McCoy slowly stands from his chair, concerned that any sudden movement will set him off even more. “Nurse,” he calls softly to the young widow, who had been working on the other side of the room.

 

She slips into the now vacated chair, and he’s relieved that she doesn’t make the same mistake he had but, instead, rests her hand on the captain’s shoulder.

 

The nurse’s presence seems to calm Jim. McCoy, acknowledging that Jim responds better to her than to him, tries to make himself invisible for the rest of the time that Jim is awake.

 

He realizes that this is going to be a longer process, after all. They haven’t even touched the surface of what he’d endured. And he has a feeling that Jim will discover that dealing with psychological and emotional trauma is no picnic.

 

The strange thing is, had he looked exactly like the other McCoy, things would have been a hell of a lot worse just now.

 

***

 

Gary had been sure that McCoy had been at the door to Jim’s quarters, not Barrow. The ensign has been surprisingly adept at eluding his control.

 

He’d mistakenly given Jim control of his own mind. He can’t fight her telepathy while Jim continues squirming in his arms.

 

“This isn’t you,” Jim pleads, like the pathetic human he is.

 

“You know nothing about me,” he hisses, breaking eye contact with Barrow.

 

He intends to invade Jim’s mind again, for good, but the deep blue in his eyes—the hope he sees—distracts him.

 

“G-Gary,” Jim wheezes. “I know...this isn’t what you wanted. This isn't you. R-remember, the Academy—”

 

“Stop!” he bellows.

 

“—when we first m-met, man,” Jim rasps. “You’d asked me out, you weren't su-such an asshole then as y-you are now.”

 

“Stop,” he protests weakly, twisting his head to the left when he sees movement in the corner of his eye.

 

McCoy stands there, phaser in his hand, cold determination in his eyes. Not an ounce of forgiveness. But he shouldn't be surprised, knowing how deep his feelings for Jim run, and the crooked path the doctor's life had taken.

 

Yet Jim….Jim is talking to him like...like nothing had happened.

 

He doesn’t know what to do. He wants to control them, but he wants to hear everything Jim has to say.

 

“You s-stood up for me, helped me adjust.” Jim laughs, and it washes over him, just like his voice. “Threw a punch at Cupcake. Probably the n-nicest thing anyone had done for me at that point.”

 

The past, what he had longed for with Jim, is just beyond his reach.

 

He stumbles back, mourning the fact that he can’t seem to remember it like Jim does and dragging his captive with him to the corner of the room.

 

He’s torn.

 

He’s consumed with more.

 

“Please, Gary,” Jim says thickly. “Don’t d-do this to yourself, to your family.”

 

Family?

 

“Your m-mom, who n-never gave up on you—”

 

He thinks of her adventurous spirit, which had given him the courage to join Starfleet in the first place. How she'd tried to get him to see a therapist after he'd hurt Jim.

 

He loosens his hold on Jim’s neck, letting him talk without gasping for every breath.

 

“Your dad, who always sent us a care package each month, including that candy you didn’t like, but that your brother liked,” Jim says, now softly. “You never complained though. You ate one piece, so you didn’t have to lie to your mom when she asked you how you liked it. You g-gave the rest away, and bought m-more for a few other freshman, because you were like that. Generous.”

 

Guilt begins to suffocate him. “No,” he says brokenly. Generous? He wasn’t—isn’t—that—

 

“What happened to you out there?” Jim whispers. “Or had it started before this?”

 

He thinks it had, but he can hardly recall when.

 

Jim’s eyes widen as he stares back, and he thinks his silence has given him away.

 

“That's why you changed so much that year,” Jim whispers.

 

Gary can hardly stand the pity.

 

Jim relaxes in his arms, as the truth hits him. “You developed powers,” he says, “and something out here twisted them beyond your control.”

 

He can’t answer Jim, but presses a kiss to the top of his head, wishing he could start those years over.

 

McCoy doesn’t know how lucky he is.

 

With a shaking hand, he pulls his phaser off his belt, can think of only one person to shoot.

 

His obsession…

 

He points his weapon at Jim—and waits. If he’s given more time to fight his demons, maybe this will be over soon.

 

“Gary, you have to know,” Jim says, ignoring the phaser at his head.

 

Jim has always been too brave, too stubborn for his own good.

 

“I loved you, then, Gary,” Jim finishes quietly. “Despite everything.”

 

He’s thinking with more clarity than he’s had for years, before his rapidly growing powers had changed him into this monster he’d become.

 

This is what he’d wanted. Jim’s attention focused solely on him, a taste of what they’d had in the beginning.

 

“Put the phaser down now, Mitchell,” McCoy warns.

 

The end is near, for one of them, but he can’t help but look at Jim, just for a moment, and hear the words a second time. The ones he knows he doesn’t deserve from a man he’d grossly mistreated. “Y-you loved me?”

 

Jim’s eyes are bright and true. “I did.”

 

He thinks he can live with that.

 

“C-crew...m-mission…” He clenches his teeth, fighting the monster with every fiber of his being. But he’s losing, and then everyone on this ship will be dead. He doesn't even have time to explain. And maybe he deserves it, no chance to explain or redeem himself. “McCoy,” he says with a final cry.

 

Jim’s eyes are forgiving as Gary adjusts his grip on his phaser, still pointed at Jim, and—

 

Just like that, it’s over.

 

The shot that’s fired doesn’t come from his own phaser, but from McCoy’s.

 

***

 

Bones happens to be there on the bridge when Jim receives the message. He’s half expected it to end like this, but he’s never believed in no-win scenarios.

 

The first note is to the point, as per Starfleet regulation.

 

The second is short, but sincere.

 

The timing is fortuitous, while the Enterprise is waiting at New Vulcan for the newlyweds, Spock and Nyota, to return to the ship.

 

He looks over his right shoulder and up at Bones, who stares down at him with that now familiar expression on his face.

 

It worries him, though he’s never admitted it. He doesn’t press, because he knows it’s his fault.

 

He can’t bear the thought of Bones touching him, yet he finds comfort in keeping him nearby. Avoiding any physical contact in order to keep himself sane, is nearly destroying him.

 

He can’t expect Bones to wait for him, now, when all Jim can do is chat about everything except what had happened in the alternate universe.

 

Bones is young, has his whole life ahead of him.

 

And Jim, he’s as fucked up as ever.

 

He has nightmares, but the Vulcan healers are helping, are helping his entire crew. His mind is still bruised in more places than he can count. He can’t remember when it’s time to eat, so Bones had Scotty engineer a special watch that will remind him. One that alerts his CMO, yeoman, and first officer each time he operates a replicator or visits the mess hall, and when he fails to follow schedule. He's been ordered to wear it until the part of his brain that senses hunger fully heals. His scars are reminders of the sick torture he’d endured, but they fade further each time Nurse Gable treats him with the dermal regenerator. Sulu actually reads to him, sitting at least eight feet away from him in his quarters, when he just needs some company.

 

It takes a village to raise a Starfleet captain, Nyota says.

 

She also says that he is a grumpy doctor whisperer. He’d secretly confided in her that he’d begun to care for the other McCoy, having seen good in him. He’d also confessed, to his chagrin, that he’d embraced the attention the other McCoy had given him, both pain and pleasure. And that he thinks, for all of that man’s sinister behavior, that he’d actually fallen for Jim.

 

It explains why McCoy had never forced himself on Jim, why he’d protested that final meld.

 

He thinks that McCoy may be in danger, and it worries him, but he hasn’t told anyone about his fear. He’s certain that the older, dangerous McCoy had helped Bones, Sulu, and Chekov escape. And if evil Spock finds out -

 

He can't finish thought, his own concern for McCoy too great.

 

“I’d like to see her before she goes,” he tells Bones, returning his focus to _this_ McCoy, and the here and now. But it’s difficult. His therapist is helping him through his issues, and she’s told him before that he needs to talk to him about everything to make progress. “She didn’t leave already, did she?”

 

Bones tries to hide it, but it doesn't fool Jim. The frown marring the doctor’s youthful face gives him away.

 

Bones is going to miss one of his best nurses, if not the best.

 

“Yeah, Jim, she did,” Bones says gruffly, shoulders straightening then slumping again. Jim had told him to go to his quarters and catch up on his rest instead of being a martyr, but the doctor had refused, of course. He can’t deny that he’s touched that Bones is so worried about him. “Right before Alpha shift.”

 

His face falls, even though he’d had a feeling this would be the case. “Oh. I would’ve like to have wished her well on her new assignment.”

 

Bones exhales a deep breath, and suddenly looks well beyond his years. “I think it’s better this way, Jim, for the both of you.”

 

“She okay?” he asks, genuinely concerned. Actually, he’s worried that she’s leaving before he can apologize again to her, for whatever he’s done to make her uncomfortable. Before he can try to make things right.

 

(He knows that it hadn’t been his fault, but he’d been plagued with the same, false memories. If he’s being honest with himself, with everyone, it has been pretty damn awkward around her still. But he’d never wanted her to leave.)

 

Bones narrows his eyes on him, probing further than he’d like him to. “Are you?”

 

He wants to resent the way Bones keeps turning the tables on him, bringing the question back to him every single time, but he can’t.

 

He’d learned something from Bones’s doppelganger, can actually, finally admit that he’s in over his head.

 

Over his head in love, the pining kind of love, with his young CMO.

 

***

 

McCoy holds his cone but doesn’t eat it, enthralled by the way Jim closes his eyes, and licks the ice cream off _his_ cone with more skill and dedication than anyone should even have while eating ice cream. It’s delightful to watch, a mix of innocence and seduction.

 

He’ll let him have a second cone, against his own common sense, just to see him start the process all over again.

 

That tongue, it’s perfection, eager for each taste of the cold, creamy dessert. That dreamy look on his face

 

“He asked for me a favor, you know,” Jim says with a dry laugh.

 

The remark is out of the blue, but he’s been getting used to this new habit of Jim’s lately, and lets it slide by. He snorts. “Sounds like something the bastard would do. What was it?”

 

“He said,” but Jim immediately grows quiet in a blink of an eye, getting no further with something that McCoy is beginning to think is a big deal.

 

A really big deal.

 

He leans forward, resting his arms on his knees, and stares straight into Jim’s eyes. As usual, the captain sits across from him, never beside, never close enough that they could touch. Even six days after Gary’s...death. He regrets that he'd had to kill Mitchell but the force within the Acting Captain had been too strong. And he'd do it again and again if it meant saving Jim. “You don’t have to keep it to yourself, or tell me,” he says. “In fact, I’d rather you didn't, in some ways.”

 

Jim nods, half-heartedly. “I know, but it’s about you, so…” He looks away. “He wanted me to...” Jim stops, looking even more miserable.

 

“He wanted me to...what?”

 

Jim shakes his head. “Never mind.”

 

“Since it seems to be bothering you so much, I think you should tell someone, Jim.”

 

Jim’s face darkens. “Right.”

 

“Well, if you don’t, I’m afraid you’ll miss out on your reward. I was going to get you another cone if you did,” he says with a straight face.

 

Jim waits a beat, then deadpans, “You’re going to bribe me with food.”

 

“Seemed like a good idea,” he says, shrugging.

 

Jim sighs, shifting in his seat. “Hell,” he mutters, and jumps to his feet. “He wanted me to forgive you, when the time came,” he blurts.

 

Oh, _fuck_.

 

His cone crumbles under the pressure of his hand. “Is that right?” he says, his voice low and gravely.

 

The ice cream seeps through his fingers. It drips, like blood.

 

Jim blinks at the sight, then groans, “Fuck,” and turns his back on him. “Shit, forget that I even told you,” he says nervously, running a hand through his hair, leaving it sticking up in patches.

 

McCoy’s lost his voice momentarily. He’s digging a hole for himself, and now, with this, that hole will be even deeper.

 

While he’s lost in his own head, Jim strangles out a sigh, and absently tosses the remainder of his cone into the bowl on his table. He heads towards the bedroom, albeit with slow, defeated steps. “As awkward as this is, it’ll be more awkward if you actually explain what he meant by that. You should probably go, Bones.”

 

It takes him a second to comprehend that Jim is running away from him, again.

 

He has a sudden revelation.

 

Maybe this isn’t about that “favor” at all.

 

“Oh, no, you don’t,” McCoy says, and races to catch him before the door slides shut, leaving him out here alone.

 

“Leave, Bones,” Jim says.

 

He firms his jaw, and his resolve, and grabs the door’s edge, stopping it just in time. “Just wait a minute, Jim.”

 

Jim’s eyes are red, but at least he turns to face him. “You’re not going to explain, Bones, are you?”

 

“Not...now,” he says carefully, stepping in the doorway.

 

Jim blinks once, gazes down at his feet like he'd just stolen his lunch money. “Right,” he mumbles.

 

Jim’s dejected expression tugs at his heart. “I would, if I could—”

 

“S’fine, Bones. I got it.”

 

“Jim, I’m sorry,” he says, reaching for him without thinking.

 

His hand brushes Jim’s wrist.

 

Jim immediately flinches. “D-Don’t.”

 

He freezes. “Jim.”

 

Jim’s eyes are wide with fear. “Don't. Touch. Me,” he hisses.

 

He doesn't take it personally, he knows better than that, but it hurts, nonetheless. “Jim—”

 

“Just,” Jim breathes out forcibly through his nostrils. “Go, Bones. _Leave_.”

 

He sees the path he’s been walking with Jim, a comfortable one, now diverging. He has to make a choice, and it has to be the right one, or he’ll regret it for the rest of his life. They’re not growing closer, not really. Jim has his demons, and now these new ones, and he has his. He can’t explain, but he doesn’t expect Jim to simply accept the fact that he can’t. He has to be honest, but also show Jim that he’s dedicated to him, that he’s not leaving, like all the others have in his life.

 

He needs to show Jim that he’s willing to do what Jim is not.

 

He has to pursue him, through thick and thin, and never, ever let go.

 

He steps into Jim’s personal space, shocked that he finally feels like the captain’s equal. He’s never been this firm with Jim. Never. “No,” he asserts.

 

Jim falters mid-step. “Wh-what?”

 

“No,” he repeats, taking two steps forward to his one backward.

 

Jim gapes at him in disbelief. “No?”

 

“No,” he emphasizes.

 

“This isn't fu-funny,” Jim stutters, wrapping his arms around his middle protectively.

 

“No, it isn’t,” he agrees, backing Jim into his bed.

 

Jim falls, ungracefully, on the bed, his face draining of color. “Stop it,” he hisses. “I mean it.”

 

He shakes his head. “Not going to, Jim.”

 

“Fuck you,” Jim sneers, then scrambles backwards on the bed, to the other side.

 

“Say what you want, I’m staying and we’re talking.”

 

Jim nearly falls off the bed in his haste, but stands and backs himself into a corner. “The hell we are. Get out, Bones,” he snaps, but his eyes are more fearful than angry. “That’s an order.”

 

“I don't think you really mean that.” The captain just stands there, as he closes the gap between them. “I’m staying, Jim.”

 

Jim’s ragged breaths fill the room. “I don’t w-want you—”

 

“Yeah, you do,” he says, softening his voice.

 

Jim looks around wildly, everywhere but at him, panicked. “Leave!”

 

He grabs Jim’s hand, squeezing it firmly to prevent him from pulling away. “No.”

 

Jim’s breath catches as he looks down at their entwined hands, but he doesn’t pull away, doesn’t do anything but breathe.

 

“Go,” Jim’s voice cracks.

 

“No,” he says.

 

“Please,” Jim begs.

 

He gives him a small smile, and offers him his loyalty. “Never.” And he folds his arms around him, locking Jim in a fierce embrace. At first, the captain struggles, but McCoy is ready and just as stubborn. A little stronger, too, although he would never boast about it. He uses his strength to his advantage, and determinedly holds Jim close. Soon, the captain’s legs buckle underneath him.

 

McCoy is all that’s keeping him from sinking to the floor.

 

Hands clutch at his back, frantically, like a drowning man trying to save himself, desperate and alone. McCoy is still and unyielding, while Jim’s body quakes each time he draws a breath.

 

He’s patient, though imperfect—but Jim doesn’t seem to care.

 

The captain sags in his arms, overcome by his emotions. “B-Bones,” he gasps. “Oh, God, Bones.”

 

“That’s it,” he soothes in a low voice, rubbing circles on his back. “Let it out. I'm not going anywhere.”

 

“But, you’ll leave—”

 

“No, no, I won't,” he murmurs into his ear.

 

Jim’s tears soak his shirt. “Y-you touched me...kissed me...cut me…made me _like_ you—”

 

He closes his eyes, feeling a remorse that shouldn't be his to experience. “I know,” he whispers. “I know, and I’m so sorry, Jim, that he hurt you, and made you confused.”

 

Jim’s fists pound against his back, each strike harder than the last. “He was you!”

 

McCoy bears his weight and the strikes without complaint, holding him close, vowing silently to never let go. “He’s not me, Jim. You know he’s not,” he soothes. “He’s not here. He’s gone. I’m here, Jim. And I would never hurt you.”

 

The captain groans, and clings to him in a staggering show of trust.

 

And he'll never take this knowledge for granted. “You’re safe with me, Jim,” he affirms again, as the memories of the past days past of terror tumble out of control. “I promise.”

 

As McCoy had anticipated, the fatigue Jim had been fighting soon catches up to him. His adrenaline rush fades, and he grows calm in his arms, breathing steadily and slowly. It's a sign of his emotional strength, despite the recent outburst.

 

But McCoy doesn’t let him go, at least not yet. The dam is likely ready to break again, at any moment, and damned if he's not there for Jim when it happens.

 

He thinks he’s earned more of Jim’s trust, showing him that he’s willing to cross the thick, invisible boundaries Jim had set for himself during times of trauma.

 

It had been a risk, but one he’d been willing to take for Jim’s sake. He’s not sure anyone has ever taken such a risk with Jim before. Maybe Spock had, maybe Pike. Given what he knows about them, he suspects that neither of them had been be able to give a touch-starved Jim Kirk what he needed the most.

 

 _This_.

 

But he has to remember that Jim’s still recovering, emotionally and physically, and will be for a long time. In the end, this has to be about Jim’s health, not McCoy’s desire to be more than friends, to develop a serious relationship with the bravest man he’s never known.

 

“I can’t stop thinking…” Jim shudders. “That Spock—and you—are them. And not just you, but my crew—”

 

He listens attentively to more of Jim’s broken confessions, and the two nightmares that he’d lived through, while leading Jim to the couch in his living quarters. They sit, side-by-side, shoulder-to-shoulder, McCoy’s body warm and tingling where they touch. He doesn’t expect them to hold hands, and they don’t, for he senses that Jim won’t be able to process that level of intimacy after so much trauma, probably not for a long time. And that’s okay.

 

It has to be.

 

Something has changed between them, nonetheless.

 

McCoy will do almost anything within his power to keep them together, just like this, until the time is right for more.

 

(Because he lives and loves with a coward’s heart, and is far from being the hero Jim believes him to be.)

 

The one thing he can't do?

 

Confess the omission that could drive a wedge between them, destroying everything they have.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS:psychological torture, mild violence, minor character death, mental manipulation, forced mind meld, dub con physical touch, forced physical entrapment (okay, I’m guessing at the terminology for this last one, which is for the hurt McCoy part, and the proper word for it escapes me, atm! It’s probably something really simple, too. LOL!)
> 
>  
> 
> The order of scenes in this chapter, alone, from the earliest to the most recent: 4, 6, 5, 7, 8, 1, 2, 3, 9, 10, 11.
> 
>    
> Although it would be tedious to actually go through the last two chapters and read them this way, here is the proper order. An A following a number refers to part 3.1. A number without a letter denotes a scene in THIS chapter: (3A), (4A), 4, 6, (5A), 5, 7, (1A), 8, (2A), 1, 2, 3, 9, 10, 11.
> 
>  
> 
> I’m going to ignore the elephant in the room in my notes here for now, though I’d LOVE to talk about McCoy. Instead, I’ll discuss other things in this note, but you are most certainly free to talk about that elephant if you want. :D 
> 
>  
> 
> Although I didn’t explicitly write this, Spock helped Jim recover some of his memories with M2, and I may touch on that in the next chapter. Gary had control over the crew, to a certain degree, and I can guarantee that almost everyone had experienced side effects, but Bones could only see it in Jim and then Chapel, not even in himself. Gary's erratic and violent behavior in the Academy had been a result of the abilities he’d already had, spinning out of control because he had no one to properly guide him. Not that it excuses him completely for hurting Jim. It does not, and let me be clear on that. Abuse/assault is wrong and criminal. No excuses. And yes, Gary was asking McCoy to kill him there at the end, because he couldn't stop himself because of what he’d become.
> 
>  
> 
> I had to cut a few things out, such as any healing mind melds, how the rest of the crew recovers from being under some level of mind control, etc., because this chapter became a monster. Please use your imagination to fill in any holes. :)
> 
>  
> 
> I think I could go on and on, writing many more scenes for this chapter, but I had to stop myself here. At least, for this fic. I’m seriously considering writing a few more scenes for this, but would make them a separate “Missing Scenes” fic if I decide to write them. One idea was to write a scene showing that Jim had actually refused treatment for one of the scars that Mirror McCoy had given him, because he wanted to remember M2 but the scar reminds him of his Bones, too, because it's either an M or a B. I'm constantly playing that scene out in my head, so who knows. 
> 
>  
> 
> I had my reasons for writing this section this way, switching the scenes around, mainly to reveal certain plot points at specific times and maintain the suspense. I’m trusting that things are a lot clearer now. If not, well, never fear. The rest of the chapters will be simpler to follow, as usual.
> 
>  
> 
> I’m back to moderating my comments, not that I’ve received any negative reviews recently - I haven’t, ya’ll have been awesome - but I’m a little wary that I will for this one. It’s inevitable, always happens after I pour myself into my writing and feel really good about it. LOL. But, this is MY fic and I’ll write it way I want to, sharing it in the hopes that others will enjoy the story and the world I’ve crafted for this Jim and Bones. CC is fine but when it comes to knocking my plot points and jumping the gun with assumptions before the story is even finished, that’s where I draw the line.
> 
>  
> 
> I’m seriously considering writing a one-shot/fic with a Mirror McCoy/Jim pairing - I honestly believe that McCoy, in any verse, wouldn’t be completely evil but have redeeming qualities in him, especially if he has AOS Jim to love and care for.
> 
>    
> We may (or may not) have seen the last of Christine Chapel. ;) I feel like I’ve been picking on Nurse Chapel in my fics recently. I think there’s more to her story, why she just had to leave the Enterprise, than what I’ve written. Who knows. So, that said, I don’t think we should be too hard on her for leaving.
> 
>    
> I truly never expected this fic or, rather, this section, to get this dark. (Believe me, that arc won’t be revisited, except for a handful of comments about it in future narrative.) Thanks for hanging in there with me, because this story really (like really really) wouldn’t be complete, what it should be, without the experience Jim and Bones had in the Mirror Verse. Now we’ll be moving on to the second half of the fic. TBH, I’m DYING to get to scenario #5. It was the first thing I plotted for this fic. I’d love to hear your thoughts so far! :) Thank you!

**Author's Note:**

> The Exogorian in the first scene is a nod to the beginning of Beyond, with the Fibonans. There could be (vague) similarities to the films in other chapters, too. 
> 
> Thank you for reading! I'll update when I can, hopefully in two weeks. :)


End file.
